BY  THE  SAME  AUTHOR. 


MY  FARM  OF  EDGEWOOD. 

On  tinted  paper.    Oue  vol.  ISuio.    fl.OO. 

SEVEN  STORIES.  WITH  BASEMENT  AND  ATTIC.  On  tinted  paper.   One  vol.  12mo. 
$1.75. 

In  neat  pocket  Edition*  : 

DREAM  LIFE.    A  Fahle  of  the  Seasons.    One  vol.   16mo.    Printed  on  fine  tinted  paper, 
»nd  bound  in  vellum  cloth.    Pnou  $1.15. 

OF  A  BACHELOR.    A  Book  of  the   Heart.     One  vol.  limo.      Printed  on 
fine  tinted  paper,  mid  bound  in  vellum  cloth.    Price  Jl. 75. 
Copies  tent  by  mail,  pert  paid,  on  receipt  of  price. 


/ 

C/4  S  S 


/  J 


WET   DAYS 

AT    EDGEWOOD: 


WITH 


OLD  FARMERS,  OLD  GARDENERS,  AND 
OLD  PASTORALS. 


BY  THE   AUTHOR  OF 

MY    FARM   OF    EDGEWOOD." 


NEW   YORK: 
CHARLES    SCRIBNER, 


1865. 


Entered  according  to  Act  of  Congress,  in  the  year  1864,  by 

CHARLES  SCRIBNER, 

in  the  Clerk's  Office  of  the  District  Court  of  the  United  States  for  the 
Southern  District  of  New  York. 


RIVERSIDE,  CAMBRIDGE:  NEW  YORK  : 

STEREOTYPED  BY  H.  0.  HOUQHTON  AND  COMPANY.       PRINTED  BY  JOHN  P.  TROW 


Annex 

S 


Drtucation. 


TO 

CHARLES   SCRIBNER, 

IN  TOKEN  OF  MY  RESPECT  FOR  HIS  LITERARY  JUDGMENT 

MY  GRATITUDE  FOR  HIS   UNIFORM  COURTESY; 

AND  MY  CONFIDENCE  IN  HIS 

FRIENDSHIP 


CONTENTS. 


FIRST  DAY. 

WITHOUT  AND  WITHIN.    ...  1 

HESIOD  AND  HOMER,    .                        ....  10 

XEXOPHON,               ...                15 

THEOCRITCS  AND  LESSER  POETS,                 21 

CATO, 26 

VARKO,          ....                .                30 

COLUMELLA, 33 

A  ROMAN  DREAM,        .               .               39 

SECOND  DAY. 

VmoiL, .  44 

AN  EPISODE,        ....                      54 

TICCLLCS  AND  HORACE, 58 

PLINY'S  COUNTRY-PLACES, 60 

PALLADIUS, .  67 

PROFESSOR  DAUBENY, 68 

TUB  DARK  AOE, 69 

GKOPONICA  GEOPONICORUM, 71 

CRESCENZI, 77 

A  FLORENTINE  FARM, 81 

THIRD  DAY. 

A  PICTURE  OF  RAW, 85 

SOUTHERN  FRANCE  AND  TROUBADOURS, 87 

AMONG  THZ  ITALIANS,     .                              91 

CONRAD  HERESBACH, 101 

LA  MAISON  RUSTIQUE, 110 

FRENCH  RURALISMS, 115 

A  MINNESINGER, 124 


vi  CONTENTS. 

FOURTH  DAY, 

PIERS  PLOWMAN,   ...  .  126 

THE  FARMER  OP  CHAUCER'S  TIME, 130 

SIR  ANTHONY  F.TZ-HEI-.BERT, .134 

THOMAS  TUSSER, 138 

SIR  HUGH  PLATT, 142 

GERVASE  MARKHAM,        ...  146 

FIFTH  DAY. 

ENGLISH  WEATHER, 156 

TIME  OF  JAMES  THE  FIRST, 160 

SAMUEL  HARTLIB, 165 

PERIOD  OF  THE  COMMONWEALTH  AND  RESTORATION 169 

OLD  ENGLISH  HOMES, 177 

A  BRACE  OF  PASTORALS, 182 

SIXTH  DAY. 

A  BRITISH  TAVERN, 186 

EARLY  ENGLISH  GARDENERS, 189 

JETHRO  TOLL, 195 

HANBURY  AND  LANCELOT  BROWN, 202 

WILLIAM  SHENSTONE, 205 

SEVENTH  DAY. 

JOHN  ABERCROMBIE, .      212 

A  PHILOSOPHER  AND  Two  POETS, 216 

LORD  KAMF.S, 221 

CLARIDGE,  MILLS,  AND  MILLER, 227 

THOMAS  WHATELY, 230 

HORACE  WALPOLE, ....  235 

EDMUND  BURKK,  .  289 

GOLDSMITH, 242 

EIGHTH  DA  Y. 

ARTHUR  YOUNG, 248 

ELLIS  AND  BAKEWELL, 254 

WILLIAM  COWPER, ...      259 

GILBERT  WHIM, 262 


CONTENTS.  vii 

PAGE 

TRUSLER  AND  FARM-PROFITS,       ....                              .  264 

SINCLAIR  AND  OTHERS, .  .  266 

OLD  AGE  OF  FARMERS, .  271 

BURNS  AND  BLOOMFIELD, .  .  276 

COUNTRY  STORY-TKLLKRS, 280 

NINTH  DAY. 

BRITISH  PROGRESS  IN  AGRICULTURE,       ...  ...  284 

OPENING  OF  THE  CENTURY, .       .     289 

SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY, 291 

BIRKBECK,  BBATSON,  AND  FINLAYSOX,         ......      296 

WILLIAM  COBBETT ...  297 

QRAHAME  AND  CRABBE 305 

CHARLES  LAMB, ....  307 

THE  ETTRICK  SHEPHERD,      ....  .  .      310 

LOUDON, ...  311 

A  BEVY  OF  POETS,       .  .  315 

L'ENTOI,  .  323 


FIRST  DAY. 


Without  and   Within. 

TT  is  raining ;  and  being  in-doors,  I  look  out  from  my 
-*~  library-window,  across  a  quiet  country-road,  so  near 
that  I  could  toss  my  pen  into  the  middle  of  it. 

A  thatched  stile  is  opposite,  flanked  by  a  straggling 
hedge  of  Osage-orange ;  and  from  the  stile  the  ground 
falls  away  in  green  and  gradual  slope  to  a  great  plateau 
of  measured  and  fenced  fields,  checkered,  a  month  since, 
with  bluish  lines  of  Swedes,  with  the  ragged  purple  of 
mangels,  and  the  feathery  emerald-green  of  carrots. 
There  are  umber-colored  patches  of  fresh-turned  fur- 
rows ;  here  and  there  the  mossy,  luxurious  verdure  of 
new-springing  rye  ;  gray  stubble  ;  the  ragged  brown  of 
discolored,  frostbitten  rag-weed  ;  next,  a  line  of  tree- 
tops,  thickening  as  they  drop  to  the  near  bed  of  a  river, 
and  beyond  the  river-basin  showing  again,  with  tufts  of 
hemlock  among  naked  oaks  and  maples ;  then  roofs, 
cupolas,  ambitious  lookouts  of  suburban  houses,  spires, 


2  WET  DAYS. 

belfries,  turrets :  all  these  commingling  in  a  long  line 
of  white,  brown,  and  gray,  which  in  sunny  weather  is 
backed  by  purple  hills,  and  flanked  one  way  by  a 
shining  streak  of  water,  and  the  other  by  a  stretch  of 
low,  wooded  mountains  that  turn  from  purple  to  blue, 
and  so  blend  with  the  northern  sky. 

Is  the  picture  clear  ?  A  road  ;  a  farm-flat  of  party- 
colored  checkers  ;  a  near  wood,  that  conceals  the  sunk- 
en meadow  of  a  river;  a  farther  wood,  that  skirts  a 
town,  —  that  seems  to  overgrow  the  town,  so  that  only 
A  confused  line  of  roofs,  belfries,  spires,  towers,  rise 
above  the  wood ;  and  these  tallest  spires  and  turrets 
lying  in  relief  against  a  purple  hill-side,  that  is  as  far 
beyond  the  town  as  the  town  is  beyond  my  window; 
and  the  purple  hill-side  trending  southward  to  a  lake- 
like  gleam  of  water,  where  a  light-house  shines  upon  a 
point ;  and  northward,  as  I  said,  these  same  purple  hills 
bearing  away  to  paler  purple,  and  then  to  blue,  and 
then  to  haze. 

Thus  much  is  seen,  when  I  look  directly  eastward ; 
but  by  an  oblique  glance  southward  (always  from  my 
library-window)  the  checkered  farm-land  is  repeated  in 
long  perspective :  here  and  there  is  a  farmhouse  with 
its  clustered  out-buildings ;  here  and  there  a  blotch  of 
wood,  or  of  orcharding ;  here  and  there  a  bright  sheen 
of  winter-grain  ;  and  the  level  ends  only  where  a  slight 
fringe  of  tree-tops,  and  the  iron  cordon  of  a  railway 


WITHOUT  AX/.>    WfTHlN.     m  3 

that  leaps  over  a  marshy  creek  upon  trestle-work, 
separate  it  from  Long  Island  Sound. 

To  the  north,  under  such  oblique  glance  as  can  be 
caught,  the  form-lands  in  smaller  enclosures  stretch 
half  a  mile  to  the  skirts  of  a  quiet  village.  A  few  tall 
chimneys  smoke  there  lazily,  and  below  them  you  see  as 
many  quick  and  repeated  puffs  of  white  steam.  Two 
white  spires  and  a  tower  are  in  bold  relief  against  the 
precipitous  basaltic  cliff,  at  whose  foot  the  village  seems 
to  nestle.  Yet  the  mountain  is  not  wholly  precipitous ; 
for  the  columnar  masses  have  been  fretted  away  by  a 
thousand  frosts,  making  a  sloping  debris  below,  and 
leaving  above  the  iron-yellow  scars  of  fresh  cleavage, 
the  older  blotches  of  gray,  and  the  still  older  stain  of 
lichens.  Nor  is  the  summit  bald,  but  tufted  with  dwarf 
cedars  and  oaks,  which,  as  they  file  away  on  either 
flank,  mingle  with  a  heavier  growth  of  hickories  and 
chestnuts.  A  few  stunted  kalmias  and  hemlock-spruces 
have  found  foothold  in  the  clefts  upon  the  face  of  the 
rock,  showing  a  tawny  green,  that  blends  prettily  with 
the  scars,  lichens,  and  weather-stains  of  the  cliff;  all 
which  show  under  a  sunset  light  richly  and  changefully 
as  the  breast  of  a  dove. 

But  just  now  there  is  no  glow  of  sunset;  raining 
still.  Indeed,  I  do  not  know  why  I  should  have  de- 
scribed at  such  length  a  mere  landscape,  (than  which  I 
know  few  fairer,)  unless  because  of  a  rainy  day  it  is 


WET  DAYS. 

always  in  my  eye,  and  that  now,  having  invited  a  few 
outsiders  to  such  entertainment  as  may  belong  to  my 
wet  fann-days,  I  should  present  to  them  at  once  my 
oldest  acquaintance,  —  the  view  from  my  library-win- 
dow. 

But  as  yet  it  is  only  coarsely  outlined  ;  I  warn  the 
reader  that  I  may  return  to  the  outside  picture  over 
and  over  again  ;  I  weary  no  more  of  it  than  I  weary 
of  the  reading  of  a  fair  poem  ;  no  written  rhythm  can 
be  more  beguiling  than  the  interchange  of  colors  — 
wood  and  grain  and  river  —  all  touched  and  toned  by 
the  wind,  as  a  pleasant  voice  intones  the  shadows  and  the 
lights  of  a  printed  Idyl.  And  if,  as  to-day,  the  cloud- 
bank  comes  down  so  as  to  hide  from  time  to  time  the 
remoter  objects,  it  is  but  a  caesural  pause,  and  anon  the 
curtain  lifts  —  the  woods,  the  spires,  the  hills  flow  in, 
and  the  poem  is  complete. 

In  that  alcove  of  my  library  which  immediately 
flanks  the  east  window  is  bestowed  a  motley  array  of 
farm-books :  there  are  fat  ones  in  yellow  vellum  ;  there 
are  ponderous  folios  with  stately  dedications  to  some 
great  man  we  never  heard  of ;  there  are  thin  tractates 
in  ambitious  type,  which  promised,  fifty  years  and  more 
ago,  to  overset  all  the  established  methods  of  farming  ; 
there  is  Jethro  Tull>  in  his  irate  way  thrashing  all  down 
his  columns  the  effete  Virgilian  husbandry ;  there  is  the 
sententious  talk  of  Cato,  the  latinity  of  Columella,  and 


WITHOUT  AND    WITHIN.  5 

some  little  musty  duodecimo,  hunted  down  upon  the 
quays  of  Paris,  with  such  title  as  "  Comes  Rusticus " ; 
there  is  the  first  thin  quarto  of  Judge  Buel's  ''  Culti- 
vator" —  since  expanded  into  the  well-ordered  state- 
liness  of  the  "  Country  Gentleman  "  ;  there  are  black- 
letter  volumes  of  Barnaby  Googe,  and  books  compiled 
by  the  distinguished  "  Captaine  Garvase  Markhame  " ; 
and  there  is  a  Xenophon  flanked  by  a  Hesiod,  and  the 
heavy  Greek  squadron  of  the  "  Geoponics." 

I  delight  immensely  in  taking  an  occasional  wet- 
day  talk  with  these  old  worthies.  They  were  none  of 
them  chemists.  I  doubt  if  one  of  them  could  have 
made  soil  analyses  which  would  have  been  worth  any- 
more, practically,  than  those  of  many  of  our  agricultu- 
ral professors.  Such  powers  of  investigation  as  they 
had,  they  were  not  in  the  habit  of  wasting,  and  the 
results  of  their  investigation  were  for  the  most  part 
compactly  managed.  They  put  together  their  several 
budgets  of  common-sense  notions  about  the  practical 
art  of  husbandry,  with  good  old-fashioned  sturdiness  and 
pointedness.  And,  after  all  —  theorize  as  we  will  and 
dream  as  we  will  about  new  systems  and  scientific  aids 
—  there  lies  a  mass  of  sagacious  observation  in  the  pages 
of  the  old  teachers  which  can  never  be  outlived,  and 
which  will  contribute  nearly  as  much  to  practical  success 
in  fanning  as  the  nice  appliances  of  modern  collegiate 
agriculture.  Fortunately,  however,  it  is  not  necessary 


6  WET  DAYS. 

to  go  to  the  pages  of  old  books  for  the  traces  and  aims 
of  that  sagacity  which  has  always  underlaid  the  best 
practice.  Its  precepts  have  become  traditional. 

And  yet  I  delight  in  finding  black-letter  evidence 
of  the  age  of  the  traditions  and  of  the  purity  with  which 
they  have  been  kept.  An  important  member  of  the 
County  Society  pays  me  a  morning  visit,  and  in  the 
course  of  a  field  -  stroll  lays  down  authoritatively  the 
opinion  that  "  there  's  no  kind  o'  use  in  ploughing  for 
turnips  in  the  spring,  unless  you  keep  the  weeds  down* 
all  through  the  season."  I  yield  implicit  and  modest 
assent ;  and  on  my  next  wet  day  find  Ischomachus  re- 
marking to  Socrates,*  —  "  This  also,  I  think,  it  must  be 
easy  for  you  to  understand,  that,  if  ground  is  to  lie  fal- 
low to  good  purpose,  it  ought  to  be  free  from  weeds, 
and  warmed  as  much  as  possible  by  the  sun."  And  yet 
my  distinguished  friend  of  the  County  Society  is  not  a 
student  of  Xenophon.  If  I  read  out  of  the  big  book 
the  same  observation  to  my  foreman  (who  is  more 
piquant  than  garrulous),  he  says,  —  "  Xenophon,  eh ! 
well,  well  —  there  's  sense  in  it." 

Again,  the  distinguished  county  member  on  some 
Sunday,  between  services,  puts  his  finger  in  my  button- 
hole, as  we  loiter  under  the  lee  side  of  the  porch,  and 
says,  —  "I  tell  you,  Squire,  there  a'n't  no  sort  o' use  in 
flinging  about  your  hay,  as  most  folks  does.  If  it 's  first 
*  (Economicus ;  Chap.  XVI.  §  13. 


WITHOUT  AND   WITHIN.  7 

year  after  seediu',  and  there 's  a  good  deal  o'  clover  in 
it,  I  lay  it  up  in  little  cocks  as  soon  as  it 's  wilted ;  next 
morning  I  make  'em  bigger,  and  after  it 's  sweat  a  day 
or  so,  I  open  it  to  dry  off  the  steam  a  bit,  and  get  it 
into  the  mow  ;  " —  all  which  is  most  excellent  advice, 
and  worthy  of  a  newspaper.  But,  on  my  next  rainy  day, 
I  take  up  Heresbach,*  and  find  Cono  laying  down  the 
law  for  Riijo  in  this  wise :  — 

O 

"  The  grasse  being  cut,  you  are  to  consider  of  what 
mature  the  grasse  is,  whether  very  coarse  and  full  of 
strong  weedes,  thicke  leaves  and  great  store  of  peony- 
grasse,  or  else  exceeding  fine  and  voyd  of  anything 
which  asketh  much  withering ;  If  it  be  of  the  first  kind, 
then  after  the  mowing  you  shall  first  ted  it,  then  raise 
it  into  little  grasse  Cockes  as  bigge  as  small  molehills, 
after  turne  them,  and  make  them  up  agaiji,  then  spread 
them ;  and  after  full  drying  put  them  into  wind  rowes, 
so  into  greater  Cockes,  then  break  those  open,  and  after 
they  have  received  the  strength  of  the  Sunne,  then  put 
three  or  four  Cockes  into  one,  and  lastly  leade  them  into 
the  Barns." 

If  I  read  this  to  my  foreman,  he  says,  "  There  's  sense 
in  that" 

And  when  I  render  to  him  out  of  the  epigram- 
matic talk  of  Cato,  the  maxim  that  "  a  man  should  farm 

*  "  The  whole  Arle  of  Husbandry,  first  written  by  Conrade  Heres- 
batch,  and  translated  by  Barnaby  Googe,  Esquire;  "  Book  I. 


8  WET  DAYS. 

no  more  land  than  he  can  farm  well,"  and  that  other 
"  that  a  farmer  should  be  a  seller  rather  than  a  buyer," 
Mr.  McManus  (the  foreman)  brings  his  brown  fist 
down  with  an  authoritative  rap  upon  the  table  that  lies 
between  us,  and  says,  —  "  That 's  sense  ! " 

In  short,  the  shrewd  sagacity,  the  keen  worldly  pru- 
dence, which  I  observe  to  lie  at  the  root  of  all  the 
fanning  thrift  around  me,  I  detect  in  a  hundred 
bristling  paragraphs  of  the  Latin  masters  whose  pages 
are  before  me. 

"  Sell  your  old  cattle  and  your  good-for-nothing 
sheep,"  *  says  Cato  ;  and,  true  to  the  preachment,  some 
thrifty  man  of  an  adjoining  town  tries  to  pass  upon  me  a 
toothless  cow  or  a  spavined  horse.  "  Establish  your  farm 
near  to  market,  or  adjoining  good  roads,"  f  says  the  Ro- 
man, and  thereupon  the  New-Englander  pounces  down 
in  his  two-story  white  house  upon  the  very  edge  of  the 
highway.  And  not  alone  in  these  lesser  matters,  but 
in  all  that  relates  to  husbandry,  I  take  a  curious  interest 
in  following  up  the  traces  of  cousinship  between  the 
old  and  the  new  votaries  of  the  craft ;  and  believing 
that  I  may  find  for  a  few  wet  days  of  talk,  a  little  parish 
of  country  livers  who  have  a  kindred  interest,  I  propose 
in  this  book  to  review  the  suggestions  and  drift  of  the 

*  "  Vendat  boves  vetulos  ....  oves  rejiculas  [and  the  old  heathen 
scoundrel  continues]  servum  senem,  servum  morbosum." 
t  "Oppidum  validiun  prop6  siet  ....  aut  via  bona." 


WITHOUT  AND    WITHIN.  9 

various  agricultural  writers,  beginning  with  the  Greeks, 
and  coming  down  to  a  period  within  the  memory  of 
those  who  are  living.  I  shall  also  take  the  liberty  of 
relieving  the  talk  with  mention  of  those  pastoral 
writers  who  have  thrown  some  light  upon  the  rural 
life  of  their  days,  or  who  by  a  truthfulness  and  sim- 
plicity of  touch  have  made  their  volumes  welcome  ones 
upon  the  shelves  of  every  country  library. 

The  books  practical  and  poetical  which  relate  to 
flower  and  field,  stand  wedded  on  my  shelves  and 
wedded  in  my  thought.  In  the  text  of  Xenophon  I 
see  the  ridges  piling  along  the  JElian  fields,  and  in  the 
music  of  Theocritus  I  hear  a  lark  that  hangs  hover- 
ing over  the  straight-laid  furrows.  An  elegy  of  Tibul- 
lus  peoples  with  lovers  a  farmstead  that  Columella  de- 
scribes. The  sparrows  of  Guarini  twitter  up  and^down 
along  the  steps  of  Crescenzi's  terraced  gardens.  Hugh 
Platt  dabbles  a  wheat-lot,  and  Spenser  spangles  it 
with  dew.  Tull  drives  his  horse-hoe  a-field  where 
Thomson  wakes  a  chorus  of  voices,  and  flings  the  dap- 
pling shadows  of  clouds. 

Why  divorce  these  twin-workers  towards  the  profits 
and  the  entertainment  of  a  rural  life  ?  Nature  has  sol- 
emnized the  marriage  of  the  beautiful  with  the  practical 
by  touching  some  day,  sooner  or  later,  every  lifting 
harvest  with  a  bridal  sheen  of  blossoms ;  no  clover- 
crop  is  perfect  without  its  bloom,  and  no  pasture  hill- 


10  WET  DAYS. 

side  altogether  what  Providence  intended  it  should  be, 
until  the  May  sun  has  come  and  stamped  it  over  with 
its  fiery  brand  of  dandelions. 

Hesiod  and  Homer. 

ESIOD  is  currently  reckoned  one  of  the  oldest 
farm  -  writers ;  but  there  is  not  enough  in  his 
homely  poem  ("  Works  and  Days  ")  out  of  which  to 
conjure  a  farm-system.  He  gives  good  advice,  indeed, 
about  the  weather,  about  ploughing  when  the  ground  is 
not  too  wet,  about  the  proper  timber  to  put  to  a  plough- 
beam,  about  building  a  house,  and  taking  a  bride.  H  v 
also  commends  the  felling  of  wood  in  autumn,  —  a 
suggestion  in  which  most  lumbermen  will  concur  with 
him,  although  it  is  questionable  if  sounder  timber  is 
not  secured  by  cutting  before  the  falling  of  the  leaves. 

"  When  the  tall  forest  sheds  her  foliage  round, 
And  with  autumnal  verdure  strews  the  ground, 
The  bole  is  incorrupt,  the  timber  good, — 
Then  whet  the  sounding  ax  to  fell  the  wood."  * 

The  old  Greek  expresses  a  little  doubt  of  young  folk. 

"  Let  a  good  ploughman  yeared  to  forty,  drive  : 
And  see  the  careful  husbandman  be  fed 
With  plenteous  morsels,  and  of  wholesome  bread: 

*  Cooke's  ffesiwl;  Book  II. 


HESIOD  AND  HOMER.  11 

The  slave  who  numbers  fewer  days,  you  '11  find 
Careless  of  work  and  of  a  rambling  mind." 

He  is  not  true  to  modern  notions  of  the  creature 
comforts  in  advising  (Book  II.  line  244)  that  the  oxen 
be  stinted  of  their  fodder  in  winter,  and  still  less  in  his 
suggestion  (line  285)  that  three  parts  of  water  should 
be  added  to  the  Biblian  wine. 

Mr.  Gladstone  notes  the  fact  that  Homer  talks  only 
in  a  grandiose  way  of  rural  life  and  employments,  as  if 
there  were  no  small  landholders  in  his  day ;  but  Ilesiod, 
who  must  have  lived  within  a  century  of  Homer,  with 
his  modest  homeliness,  does  not  confirm  this  view.  He 
tells  us  a  farmer  should  keep  two  ploughs,  and  be  cau- 
tious how  he  lends  either  of  them.  His  household  stip- 
ulations, too,  are  most  moderate,  whether  on  the  score 
of  the  bride,  the  maid,  or  the  "  forty-year-old  "  plough- 
man ;  and  for  guardianship  of  the  premises  the  pro- 
prietor is  recommended  to  keep  "  a  sharp-toothed  cur." 

This  reminds  us  how  Ulysses,  on  his  return  from 
voyaging,  found  seated  round  his  good  bailiff  Eumaeus 
four  savage  watch -dogs,  who  straightway  (and  here 
Homer  must  have  nodded)  attack  their  old  master, 
and  are  driven  off  only  by  a  good  pelting  of  stones. 

This  Eumaeus  may  be  regarded  as  the  Homeric 
representative  farmer,  as  well  as  bailiff  and  swine- 
herd,—the  great  original  of  Gurth,  who  might  have 
prepared  a  supper  for  Cedric  the  Saxon  very  much  as 


12  WET  DAYS. 

Eumaeus  extemporized  one  upon  his  Greek  farm  for 
Ulysses.  Pope  shall  tell  of  this  bit  of  cookery  in  rhyme 
that  has  a  ring  of  the  Rappahannock :  — 

"  His  vest  succinct  then  girding  round  his  waist, 
Forth  rushed  the  swain  with  hospitable  haste, 
Straight  to  the  lodgments  of  his  herd  he  run, 
Where  the  fat  porkers  slept  beneath  the  sun ; 
Of  two  his  cutlass  launched  the  spouting  blood ; 
These  quartered,  singed,  and  fixed  on  forks  of  wood, 
All  hasty  on  the  hissing  coals  he  threw ; 
And,  smoking,  back  the  tasteful  viands  drew, 
Broachers,  and  all." 

This  is  roast  pig :  nothing  more  elegant  or  digestible. 
For  the  credit  of  Greek  farmers,  I  am  sorry  that 
Eumaeus  had  nothing  better  to  offer  his  landlord,  — 
the  most  abominable  dish,  Charles  Lamb  and  his 
pleasant  fable  to  the  contrary  notwithstanding,  that 
was  ever  set  before  a  Christian. 

But  there  is  pleasanter  and  more  odorous  scent  of 
the  Homeric  country  in  the  poet's  flowing  description 
of  the  garden  of  Alcinous ;  and  thither,  on  this  wet 
day,  I  conduct  my  reader,  under  leave  of  the  King 
of  the  Phaeacians :  — 

"  Four  acres  was  the  allotted  space  of  ground, 
Fenced  with  a  green  enclosure  all  around, 
Tall  thriving  trees  confined  the  fruitful  mould; 
The  reddening  apple  ripens  here  to  gold. 
Here  the  blue  fig  with  luscious  juice  o'erflows, 
With  deeper  red  the  full  pomegranate  glows; 


HESIOD  AND  HOMER.  13 

The  branch  here  bends  beneath  the  weighty  pear, 
And  verdant  olives  flourish  round  the  year. 
The  balmy  spirit  of  the  western  gale 
Eternal  breathes  on  fruits  untaught  to  fail : 
Each  dropping  pear  a  following  pear  supplies; 
On  apples  apples,  figs  on  figs  arise : 
The  same  mild  season  gives  the  blooms  to  blow, 
The  buds  to  harden  and  the  fruits  to  grow- 

"  Here  ordered  vines  in  equal  ranks  appear, 
With  all  th'  united  labors  of  the  year; 
Some  to  unload  the  fertile  branches  run, 
Some  dry  the  blackening  clusters  in  the  sun ; 
Others  to  tread  the  liquid  harvest  join, 
The  groaning  presses  foam  with  floods  of  wine. 
Here  are  the  vines  in  early  flowers  descried, 
Here  grapes  discolored  on  the  sunny  side, 
And  there  in  autumn's  richest  purple  dyed." 

Is  this  not  a  pretty  garden-scene  for  a  blind  poet  to 
lay  down  ?  Horace  Walpole,  indeed,  in  an  ill-natured 
way,  tells  us,*  that,  "  divested  of  harmonious  Greek  and 
bewitching  poetry,"  it  was  but  a  small  orchard  and  vine- 
yard, with  some  beds  of  herbs  and  two  fountains  that 
watered  them,  enclosed  by  a  thick-set  hedge.  I  do  not 
thank  him  for  the  observation ;  I  prefer  to  regard  the 
four  acres  of  Alcinous  with  all  the  Homeric  bigness 
and  glow  upon  them.  And  under  the  same  old  Greek 
haze  I  see  the  majestic  Ulysses,  in  his  tattered  clothes 
flinging  back  the  taunts  of  the  trifling  Eurymachus, 
•  Lord  Orford's  Works,  1793;  Vol.  Tl.  p.  520. 


14  WET  DAYS. 

and  in  the  spirit  of  a  yeoman  who  knew  how  to  handle 
a  plough  as  well  as  a  spear,  boasting  after  this  style :  — 

"  Should  we,  0  Prince,  engage 
In  rival  tasks  beneath  the  burning  rage 
Of  summer  suns ;  were  both  constrained  to  wield, 
Foodless,  the  scythe  along  the  burdened  field ; 
Or  should  we  labor,  while  the  ploughshare  wounds, 
With  steers  of  equal  strength,  the  allotted  grounds; 
Beneath  my  labors,  how  thy  wondering  eyes 
Might  see  the  sable  field  at  once  arise!" 

To  return  to  Hesiod,  we  suspect  that  he  was  only  a 
small  farmer  —  if  he  had  ever  farmed  at  all  —  in  the 
foggy  latitude  of  Boeotia,  and  knew  nothing  of  the  sunny 
wealth  in  the  south  of  the  peninsula,  or  of  such  princely 
estates  as  Eumaeus  managed  in  the  Ionian  Seas.  Flax- 
man  lias  certainly  not  given  him  the  look  of  a  large 
proprietor  in  his  outlines :  his  toilet  is  severely  scant, 
and  the  old  gentleman  appears  to  have  lost  two  of  his 
fingers  in  a  chaff-cutter.  As  for  Perses,  who  is  rep- 
resented as  listening  to  the  sage,*  his  dress  is  in  the 
extreme  of  classic  scantiness,  —  being,  in  fact,  a  mere 
night-shirt,  and  a  tight  fit  at  that. 

But  we  dismiss  Hesiod,  the  first  of  the  heathen  farm- 
writers,  with  a  loving  thought  of  his  pretty  Pandora, 
whom  the  goddesses  so  bedecked,  whom  Jove  looks  on 
(in  Flaxman's  picture)  with  such  sharp  approval,  and 
*  Flaxman's  Illustrations  of  Works  and  Days ;  Plate  I. 


XENOPHON.  15 

whose  attributes  the  poet  has  compacted  into  one  res- 
onant line,  daintily  rendered  by  Cooke,  — 

"  Thus  the  sex  began 
A  lovely  mischief  to  the  soul  of  man." 

Xenophon. 

T  NEXT  beg  to  pull  from  his  place  upon  the  shelf, 
-*-  and  to  present  to  the  reader,  General  Xenophon, 
a  most  graceful  writer,  a  capital  huntsman,  an  able 
strategist,  an  experienced  farmer,  and,  if  we  may  be- 
lieve Laertius,  "  handsome  beyond  expression." 

It  is  refreshing  to  find  such  qualities  united  in  one 
man  at  any  time,  and  doubly  refreshing  to  find  them  in 
a  person  so  far  removed  from  the  charities  of  to-day 
that  the  malcontents  cannot  pull  his  character  in  pieces. 
To  be  sure,  he  was  guilty  of  a  few  acts  of  pillage  in  the 
course  of  his  Persian  campaign,  but  he  tells  the  story 
of  it  in  his  "  Anabasis "  with  a  brave  front ;  his  purse 
was  low,  and  needed  replenishment ;  there  is  no  cover 
put  up,  of  disorderly  sutlers  or  camp-followers. 

The  farming  reputation  of  the  general  rests  upon 
his  "  (Economics  "  and  his  horse-treatise  (I-mriK-ij). 

Economy  has  come  to  have  a  contorted  meaning  in 
our  day,  as  if  it  were  only  —  saving.  Its  true  gist  is 
better  expressed  by  the  word  management ;  and  in  that 
old-fashioned  sense  it  forms  a  significant  title  for  Xen- 


16  WET  DAYS. 

ophon's  book :  management  of  the  household,  manage- 
ment of  flocks,  of  servants,  of  land,  and  of  property  in 
general. 

At  the  very  outset  we  find  this  bit  of  practical  wis- 
dom, which  is  put  into  the  mouth  of  Socrates,  who  is 
replying  to  Critobulus  :  — "  Those  things  should  be 
called  goods  that  are  beneficial  to  the  master.  Neither 
can  those  lands  be  called  goods  which  by  a  man's  un- 
skilful management  put  him  to  more  expense  than  he 
receives  profit  by  them  ;  nor  may  those  lands  be  called 
goods  which  do  not  bring  a  good  farmer  such  a  profit 
as  may  give  him  a  good  living." 

Thereafter  (sec.  vii.)  he  introduces  the  good  Ischom- 
achus,  who,  it  appears,  has  a  thrifty  wife  at  home,  and 
from  that  source  flow  in  a  great  many  capital  hints  upon 
domestic  management.  The  apartments,  the  exposure, 
the  cleanliness,  the  order,  are  all  considered  in  such  an 
admirably  practical,  common-sense  way  as  would  make 
the  old  Greek  a  good  lecturer  to  the  sewing-circles  of 
our  time.  And  when  the  wife  of  the  wise  Ischomachus, 
in  an  unfortunate  moment,  puts  on  rouge  and  cosmetics, 
the  grave  husband  meets  her  with  this  complimentary 
rebuke :  — "  Can  there  be  anything  in  Nature  more 
complete  than  yourself? " 

"  The  science  of  husbandry,"  he  says,  and  it  might 
be  said  of  the  science  in  most  times,  "  is  extremely  prof- 
itable to  those  who  understand  it ;  but  it  brings  the 


XENOPHON.  17 

greatest  trouble  and  misery  upon  those  farmers  who 
undertake  it  without  knowledge."  (sec.  xv.) 

Where  Xenophon  comes  to  speak  of  the  details  of 
farm-labor,  of  ploughings  and  fallowings,  there  is  all 
that  precision  and  particularity  of  mention,  added  to  a 
shrewd  sagacity,  which  one  might  look  for  in  the  col- 
umns of  the  "  Country  Gentleman."  He  even  describes 
how  a  field  should  be  thrown  into  narrow  lands,  in 
order  to  promote  a  more  effectual  surface-drainage.  In 
the  midst  of  it,  however,  we  come  upon  a  stercorary 
maxim,  which  is,  to  say  the  least,  of  doubtful  worth  :  — 
"  Nor  is  there  any  sort  of  earth  which  will  not  make 
very  rich  manure,  by  being  laid  a  due  time  in  standing 
water,  till  it  is  fully  impregnated  with  the  virtue  of  the 
water."  One  of  his  British  translators,  Professor  Brad- 
ley, does,  indeed,  give  a  little  note  of  corroborative 
testimony.  But  I  would  not  advise  any  active  farmer, 
on  the  authority  either  of  General  Xenophon  or  of 
Professor  Bradley,  to  transport  his  surface-soil  very 
largely  to  the  nearest  frog-pond,  in  the  hope  of  finding 
it  transmuted  into  manure.  The  absorptive  and  reten- 
tive capacity  of  soils  is,  to  be  sure,  the  bone  just  now 
of  very  particular  contention ;  but  whatever  that  ca- 
pacity may  be,  it  certainly  needs  something  more  pal- 
pable than  the  virtue  of  standing  water  for  its  profita- 
ble development 

Here,  again,  is  very  neat  evidence   of   how  much 


18  WET  DAYS. 

simple  good  sense  has  to  do  with  husbandry  :  Socrates, 
who  is  supposed  to  have  no  particular  knowledge  of  the 
craft,  says  to  his  interlocutor,  —  "  You  have  satisfied  me 
that  I  am  not  ignorant  in  husbandry ;  and  yet  I  never 
had  any  master  to  instruct  me  in  it." 

"  It  is  not,"  says  Xenophon,  "  difference  in  knowledge 
or  opportunities  of  knowledge  that  makes  some  farmers 
rich  and  others  poor  ;  but  that  which  makes  some  poor 
and  some  rich  is  that  the  former  are  negligent  and  lazy, 
the  latter  industrious  and  thrifty." 

Next,  we  have  this  masculine  ergo :  —  "  Therefore  we 
may  know  that  those  who  will  not  learn  such  sciences 
as  they  might  get  their  living  by,  or  do  not  fall  into 
husbandry,  are  either  downright  fools,  or  else  propose 
to  get  their  living  by  robbery  or  by  begging."  (sec.  xx.) 

This  is  a  good  clean  cut  at  politicians,  office-holders, 
and  other  such  beggar-craft,  through  more  than  a  score 
of  centuries,  —  clean  as  classicism  can  make  it :  the 
Attic  euphony  in  it,  and  all  the  aroma  of  age. 

Once  more,  and  it  is  the  last  of  the  "  CEconomicus," 
we  give  this  charming  bit  of  New-Englandism :  —  "I 
remember  my  father  had  an  excellent  rule,"  (Ischoma,' 
chus  loquitur,)  "  which  he  advised  me  to  follow :  that, 
if  ever  I  bought  any  land,  I  should  by  no  means  pur- 
chase that  which  had  been  already  well-improved,  but 
should  choose  such  as  had  never  been  tilled,  either 
through  neglect  of  the  owner,  or  for  want  of  capacity 


XENOPHON.  13 

to  do  it ;  for  he  observed,  that,  if  I  were  to  purchase 
improved  grounds,  I  must  pay  a  high  price  for  them, 
and  then  I  could  not  propose  to  advance  their  value, 
and  must  also  lose  the  pleasure  of  improving  them 
myself,  or  of  seeing  them  thrive  better  by  my  en- 
deavors." * 

When  Xenophon  wrote  his  rural  treatises,  (including 
the  KwiryeriKos.)  he  was  living  in  that  delightful  region 
of  country  which  lies  westward  of  the  mountains  of 
Arcadia,  looking  toward  the  Ionian  Sea.  Here,  too, 
he  wrote  the  story  of  his  retreat,  and  his  wanderings 
among  the  mountains  of  Armenia ;  here  he  talked  with 
his  friends,  and  made  other  such  symposia  as  he  has 
given  us  a  taste  of  at  the  house  of  Callias  the  Athenian ; 
here  he  ranged  over  the  whole  country-side  with  his 
horses  and  dogs :  a  stalwart  and  lithe  old  gentleman, 
without  a  doubt ;  able  to  mount  a  horse  or  to  manage 
one,  with  the  supplest  of  the  grooms  ;  and  with  a  keen 
eye,  as  his  book  shows,  for  the  good  points  in  horse- 
flesh. A  man  might  make  a  worse  mistake  than  to 
buy  a  horse  after  Xenophon's  instructions,  to-day.  A 
spavin  or  a  wind-gall  did  not  escape  the  old  gentleman's 
eye,  and  he  never  bought  a  nag  without  proving  his 
wind,  and  handling  him  well  about  the  mouth  and  ears. 

*  It  is  worthy  of  note  that  Catn  advises  a  contrary  practice,  and 
urges  that  purchase  of  land  be  made  of  a  good  farmer.  "  Caveto  ne 
alienam  disciplinam  temere  contemnas.  De  domino  bono  colono,  bono- 
que  anliticatore  melius  emetiir." — De  Re  Rusticd.  I. 


20  WET  DAYS. 

His  grooms  were  taught  their  duties  with  nice  special- 
ity :  the  mane  and  tail  to  be  thoroughly  washed ;  the 
food  and  bed  to  be  properly  and  regularly  prepared ; 
and  treatment  to  be  always  gentle  and  kind. 

Exception  may  perhaps  be  taken  to  his  doctrine  in 
regard  to  stall-floors.  Moist  ones,  he  says,  injure  the 
hoof:  "Better  to  have  stones  inserted  in  the  ground 
close  to  one  another,  equal  in  size  to  their  hoofs  ;  for 
such  stalls  consolidate  the  hoofs  of  those  standing  on 
them,  beside  strengthening  the  hollow  of  the  foot." 

After  certain  directions  for  rough  riding  and  leaping, 
he  advises  hunting  through  thickets,  if  wild  animals  are 
to  be  found.  Otherwise,  the  following  pleasant  diver- 
sion is  named,  which  I  beg  to  suggest  to  sub-lieutenants 
in  training  for  dragoon-service :  —  "It  is  a  useful  ex- 
ercise for  two  horsemen  to  agree  between  themselves, 
that  one  shall  retire  through  all  sorts  of  rough  places, 
and  as  he  flees,  is  to  turn  about  from  time  to  time  and 
present  his  spear ;  and  the  other  shall  pursue,  having 
javelins  blunted  with  balls,  and  a  spear  of  the  same 
description,  and  whenever  he  comes  within  javelin- 
throw,  he  is  to  hurl  the  blunted  weapon  at  the  party 
retreating,  and  whenever  he  comes  within  spear-reach, 
he  is  to  strike  him  with  it." 

Putting  aside  his  horsemanship,  in  which  he  must 
have  been  nearly  perfect,  there  was  very  much  that  was 
grand  about  the  old  Greek, —  very  much  that  makes  us 


THEOCRITUS  AND  LESSER  POETS.  21 

strangely  love  the  man,  who,  when  his  soldiers  lay  be- 
numbed under  the  snows  on  the  heights  of  Armenia, 
threw  off  his  general's  coat,  or  blanket,  or  what  not, 
and  set  himself  resolutely  to  wood-chopping  and  to 
cheering  them.  The  farmer  knew  how.  Such  men  win 
battles.  He  has  his  joke,  too,  with  Cheirisophus,  the 
Lacedaemonian,  about  the  thieving  propensity  of  his 
townspeople,  and  invites  him,  in  virtue  of  it,  to  steal  a 
difficult  march  upon  the  enemy.  And  Cheirisophus 
grimly  retorts  upon  Xenophon,  that  Athenians  are  said 
to  be  great  experts  in  stealing  the  public  money,  espe- 
cially the  high  officers.  This  sounds  home-like !  When 
I  come  upon  such  things,  —  by  Jupiter !  —  I  forget  the 
parasangs  and  the  Taochians  and  the  dead  Cyrus,  and 
seem  to  be  reading  out  of  American  newspapers. 

Theocritus  and  Lesser  Poets. 

TT  is  quite  out  of  the  question  to  claim  Theocritus  as 
-*-  a  farm-writer ;  and  yet  in  all  old  literature  there  is 
not  to  be  found  such  a  lively  bevy  of  heifers,  and  wan- 
ton kids,  and  "  butting  rams,"  and  stalwart  herdsmen, 
who  milk  the  cows  "  upon  the  sly,"  as  in  the  "  Idyls  "  of 
the  musical  Sicilian. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  Theocritus  knew  the  country 
to  a  charm  :  he  knew  all  its  roughnesses,  and  the  thorns 
that  scratched  the  bare  legs  of  the  goatherds ;  he 


22  WET  DAYS. 

knew  the  lank  heifers,  that  fed,  "  like  grasshoppers," 
only  on  dew ;  he  knew  what  clatter  the  brooks  made, 
tumbling  headlong  adown  the  rocks  ;  *  he  knew,  more- 
over, all  the  charms  and  coyness  of  the  country- 
nymphs,  giving  even  a  rural  twist  to  his  praises  of  the 
courtly  Helen :  — 

"  In  shape,  in  height,  in  stately  presence  fair, 
Straight  as  a  furrow  gliding  from  the  share."  t 

A  man  must  have  had  an  eye  for  good  ploughing  and 
a  lithe  figure,  as  well  as  a  keen  scent  for  the  odor  of 
fresh-turned  earth,  to  make  such  a  comparison  as  that ! 

Again,  he  gives  us  an  Idyl  of  the  Reapers.  Milo  and 
Battus  are  afield  together.  The  last  lags  at  his  work, 
and  Milo  twits  him  with  his  laziness  ;  whereupon  Battus 
retorts,  — 

"  Milo,  them  moiling  drudge,  as  hard  as  stone, 
An  absent  mistress  did'st  thou  ne'er  bemoan?  '' 

And  Milo,  — 

"  Not  I,  —  I  never  learnt  fair  maids  to  woo ; 
Pray,  what  with  love  have  reaping  men  to  do?  " 

Yet  he  listens  to  the  plaint  of  his  brother-reaper,  and 
draws  him  out  in  praise  of  his  mistress  — "  charming 

*  The  resounding  clatter  of  his  falling  water  is  too  beautiful  to  be 
omitted :  — 

—  uirb  Tuf  irerpas  KaTcd,Eif3£Tai  vtybdev  Mup- 
t  Elton's  translation,  I  think.    I  do  not  vouch  for  its  correctness. 


THEOCRITUS  AND  LESSER  POETS.  23 

Bombyce,"  —  upon  which  love-lorn  strain  Milo  breaks 
in,  rough  and  homely  and  breezy :  — 

"  My  Battus,  witless  with  a  beard  so  long, 
Attend  to  tuneful  Lytierses'  song. 
O  fruitful  Ceres,  bless  with  corn  the  field; 
May  the  full  ears  a  plenteous  harvest  yield ! 
Bind,  reapers,  bind-your  sheaves,  lest  strangers  say, 
'  Ah,  lazy  drones,  their  hire  is  thrown  away  !  ' 
To  the  fresh  north  wind  or  the  zephyrs  rear 
Your  shocks  of  corn;  those  breezes  fill  the  ear. 
Ye  threshers,  never  sleep  at  noon  of  day, 
For  then  the  light  chaff  quickly  blows  away. 
Reapers  should  rise  with  larks  to  earn  their  hire, 
Eest  in  the  heat,  and  with  the  larks  retire. 
How  happy  is  the  fortune  of  a  frog : 
He  wants  no  moisture  in  his  watery  bog. 
Steward,  boil  all  the  pease:  such  pinching  's  mean; 
You  '11  cut  your  hand  by  splitting  of  a  bean." 

Theocritus  was  no  French  sentimentalist ;  he  would 
have  protested  against  the  tame  elegancies  of  the  Ro- 
man Bucolics  ;  and  the  sospiri  ardenti  and  miserelli 
amanti  of  Guarini  would  have  driven  him  mad.  He  is  as 
brisk  as  the  wind  upon  a  breezy  down.  His  cow-tenders 
are  swart  and  barelegged,  and  love  with  a  vengeance. 
It  is  no  Boucher  we  have  here,  nor  Watteau :  cosmetics 
and  rosettes  are  far  away ;  tunics  are  short,  and  cheeks 
are  nut-brown.  It  is  Teniers  rather :  —  boors,  indeed  ; 
but  they  are  live  boors,  and  not  manikin  shepherds. 
There  is  no  miserable  tooting  upon  flutes,  but  an  up- 


24  WET  DAYS. 

roarious  song  that  shakes  the  woods ;  and  if  it  comes  to 
a  matter  of  kissing,  there  are  no  "  reluctant  lips,"  but  a 
smack  that  makes  the  vales  resound. 

I  shall  call  out  another  Sicilian  here,  named  Mos- 
chus,  were  it  only  for  his  picture  of  a  fine,  sturdy  bul- 
lock :  it  occurs  in  his  "  Rape  of  Europa  "  :  — 

"With  yellow  hue  his  sleekened  body  beams; 
His  forehead  with  a  snowy  circle  gleams; 
Horns,  equal-bending,  from  his  brow  emerge, 
And  to  a  moonlight  crescent  orbing  verge." 

Nothing  can  be  finer  than  the  way  in  which  this 
"milky  steer,"  with  Europa  on  his  back,  goes  sailing 
over  the  brine,  his  "  feet  all  oars."  Meantime,  she,  the 
pretty  truant, 

"  Grasps  with  one  hand  his  curved  projecting  horn, 
And  with  the  other  closely  drawn  compressed 
The  fluttering  foldings  of  her  purple  vest, 
Whene'er  its  fringed  hem  was  dashed  with  dew 
Of  the  salt  sea-foam  that  in  circles  flew: 
Wide  o'er  Europa's  shoulders  to  the  gale 
The  ruffled  robe  heaved  swelling,  like  a  sail." 

Moschus  is  as  rich  as  the  Veronese  at  Venice  ;  and 
his  picture  is  truer  to  the  premium  standard.  The 
painting  shows  a  pampered  animal,  with  over-red 
blotches  on  his  white  hide,  and  is  by  half  too  fat  to 
breast  such  "  salt  sea-foam "  as  flashes  on  the  Idyl  of 
Moschus. 


THEOCRITUS  AND  LESSER  POETS.  25 

Another  poet,  Aratus  of  Cilicia,  whose  very  name 
lias  a  smack  of  tillage,  has  left  us  a  book  about  the 
weather  (Aioo-jj/ma)  which  is  quite  as  good  to  mark 
down  a  hay-day  by  as  the  later  meteorologies  of  Pro- 
fessor Espy  or  Judge  Butler. 

Besides  which,  our  friend  Aratus  holds  the  abiding 
honor  of  having  been  quoted  by  St.  Paul,  in  his  speech 
to  the  Athenians  on  Mars  Hill :  — 

"  For  in  Him  we  live,  and  move,  and  have  our  being ; 
as  certain  also  of  your  own  poets  have  said :  '  For  we 
are  also  His  offspring.'  " 

And  Aratus,  (after  Elton,)  — 

"  On  thee  our  being  hangs;  in  thee  we  move;  , 

All  are  thy  offspring,  and  the  seed  of  Jove." 

Scattered  through  the  lesser  Greek  poets,  and  up 
and  down  the  Anthology,  are  charming  bits  of  rurality, 
redolent  of  the  fields  and  of  field-life,  with  which  it 
would  be  easy  to  fill  up  the  measure  of  this  rainy  day, 
and  beat  off  the  Grecian  couplets  to  the  tinkle  of  the 
eave-drops.  Up  and  down,  the  cicada  chirps ;  the 
locust,  "  encourager  of  sleep,"  sings  his  drowsy  song ; 
boozy  Anacreon  flings  grapes;  the  purple  violets  and 
the  daffodils  crown  the  perfumed  head  of  Heliodora  ; 
and  the  reverent  Simonides  likens  our  life  to  the  grass. 

Nor  will  I  part  company  with  these,  or  close  up  the 
Greek  ranks  of  farmers,  (in  which  I  must  not  forget 
the  great  schoolmaster,  Theophrastus,)  until  I  cull  a 


26  WET  DAYS. 

sample  of  the  Anthology,  and  plant  it  for  a  guidon  at 
the  head  of  the  column,  —  a  little  bannerol  of  music, 
touching  upon  our  topic,  as  daintily  as  the  bees  touch 
the  flowering  tips  of  the  wild  thyme. 
It  is  by  Zonas  the  Sardian  :  — 

At  6'  a/ere  t;ov$al 


and  the  rendering  by  Mr.  Hay  :  — 

"Ye  nimble  .honey-making  bees,  the  flowers  are  in  their  prime; 
Come  now  and  taste  the  little  buds  of  sweetly  breathing  thyme, 
Of  tender  poppies  all  so  fair,  or  bits  of  raisin  sweet, 
Or  down  that  decks  the  apple  tribe,  or  fragrant  violet; 
Come,  nibble  on,  —  your  vessels  store  with  honey  while  you  can, 
In  order  that  the  hive-protecting,  bee-preserving  Pan 
Hay  have  a  tasting  for  himself,  and  that  the  hand  so  rude, 
That  cuts  away  the  comb,  may  leave  yourselves  some  little  food." 

Goto. 

LEAVING  now  this  murmur  of  the  bees  upon  the 
banks  of  the  Pactolus,  we  will  slip  over-seas  to 
Tusculum,  where  Cato  was  born,  who  was  the  oldest  of 
the  Roman  writers  upon  agriculture  ;  and  thence  into 
the  Sabine  territory,  where,  upon  an  estate  of  his  father's, 
in  the  midst  of  the  beautiful  country  lying  northward 
of  the  Monte  Gennaro,  (the  Lucretilis  of  Horace,)  he 
learned  the  art  of  good  farming. 

In  what  this  art  consisted  in  his  day,  he  tells  us  in 
short,   crackling  speech  :  —  "Primum,   bene  arare  ;  se- 


CA  TO.  27 

cundwn,  arare ;  tertium,  stercorare."  For  the  rest,  lie 
says,  choose  good  seed,  sow  thickly,  and  pull  all  the 
weeds.  Nothing  more  would  be  needed  to  grow  as 
good  a  crop  upon  the  checkered  plateau  under  my  win- 
dow as  ever  fattened  among  the  Sabine  Hills. 

Has  the  art  come  to  a  stand-still,  then  ;  and  shall  we 
take  to  reading  Cato  on  fair  days,  as  well  as  rainy  ? 

There  has  been  advance,  without  doubt ;  but  all  the 
advance  in  the  world  would  not  take  away  the  edge 
from  truths,  stated  as  Cato  knew  how  to  state  them. 
There  is  very  much  of  what  is  called  Agricultural 
Science,  nowadays,  which  is  —  rubbish.  Science  is 
sound,  and  agriculture  always  an  honest  art;  but  the 
mixture,  not  uncommonly,  is  bad,  —  no  fair  marriage, 
but  a  monstrous  concubinage,  with  a  monstrous  progeny 
of  muddy  treatises  and  disquisitions  which  confuse  more 
than  they  instruct.  In  contrast  with  such,  it  is  no  won- 
der that  the  observations  of  such  a  man  as  Cato,  whose 
energies  had  been  kept  alive  by  service  in  the  field, 
and  whose  tongue  had  been  educated  in  the  Roman 
Senate,  should  carry  weight  with  them.  The  grand 
truths  on  which  successful  agriculture  rests,  and  which 
simple  experience  long  ago  demonstrated,  cannot  be 
kept  out  of  view,  nor  can  they  be  dwarfed  by  any  im- 
position of  learning.  Science  may  explain  them,  or 
illustrate  or  extend ;  but  it  cannot  shake  their  pre- 
ponderating influence  upon  the  crop  of  the  year.  As 


28  WET  DAYS. 

respects  many  other  arts,  the  initial  truths  may  be  lost 
sight  of,  and  overlaid  by  the  mass  of  succeeding  devel- 
opments, —  not  falsified,  but  so  belittled  as  practically 
to  be  counted  for  nothing.  In  this  respect,  agriculture 
is  exceptional.  The  old  story  is  always  the  safe  story  : 
you  must  plough  and  plough  again ;  and  manure ;  and 
sow  good  seed,  and  enough  ;  and  pull  the  weeds ;  and 
as  sure  as  the  rain  falls,  the  crop  will  come. 

Many  nice  additions  to  this  method  of  treatment, 
which  my  fine-farming  friends  will  suggest,  are  antici- 
pated by  the  old  Roman,  if  we  look  far  enough  into  his 
book.  Thus,  he  knew  the  uses  of  a  harrow  ;  he  knew 
the  wisdom  of  ploughing  in  a  green  crop  ;  he  had 
steeps  for  his  seed.;  he  knew  how  to  drain  off  the 
surface-water,  —  nay,  there  is  very  much  in  his  account 
of  the  proper  preparation  of  ground  for  olive-trees,  or 
vine-setting,  which  looks  like  a  mastery  of  the  princi- 
ples that  govern  the  modern  system  of  drainage.* 

Of  what  particular  service  recent  investigations  in 
science  have  been  to  the  practical  fanner,  and  what 
positive  and  available  aid,  beyond  what  could  be  de- 
rived from  a  careful  study  of  the  Roman  masters,  they 
put  into  the  hands  of  an  intelligent  worker,  who  is  till- 
ing ground  simply  for  pecuniary  advantage,  I  shall  hope 
to  inquire  and  discourse  upon  some  other  day :  when 
that  day  comes,  we  will  fling  out  the  banner  of  the 
*  XLIII.  "  Sulcos,  si  locus  aquosus  erit,  alveatos  esse  oportet,"  etc. 


CA  TO.  29 

nineteenth  century,  and  give  a  gun  to  Liebig,  and  John- 
son, and  the  rest. 

Meantime,  as  a  farmer  who  endeavors  to  keep  posted 
in  all  the  devices  for  pushing  lands  which  have  an  awk- 
ward habit  of  yielding  poor  crops  into  the  better  habit 
of  yielding  large  ones,  I  will  not  attempt  to  conceal  the 
chagrin  with  which  I  find  this  curmudgeon  of  a  Roman 
Senator,  living  two  centuries  before  Christ,  and  north- 
ward of  Monte  Gennaro,  who  never  heard  of  "  Hovey's 
Root-Cutter,"  or  of  the  law  of  primaries,  laying  down 
rules  *  of  culture  so  clear,  so  apt,  so  full,  that  I,  who 
have  the  advantages  of  two  thousand  years,  find  nothing 
in  them  to  laugh  at,  unless  it  be  a  few  oblations  to 
the  gods  ;  |  and  this,  considering  that  I  am  just  now 
burning  a  little  incense  (Havana)  to  the  nymph  Volutia, 
is  uncalled  for. 

And  if  Senator  Cato  were  to  wake  up  to-morrow,  in 
the  white  house  that  stares  through  the  rain  yonder, 
and  were  to  open  his  little  musty  vellum  of  slipshod 
maxims,  and,  in  faith  of  it,  start  a  rival  farm  in  the 
bean-line,  or  in  vine-growing,  —  keeping  clear  of  the 
newspapers,  —  I  make  no  doubt  but  he  would  prove 
as  thrifty  a  neighbor  as  my  good  friend  the  Deacon. 

We  nineteenth-century  men,  at  work  among  our 
cabbages,  clipping  off  the  purslane  and  the  twitch-grass, 

*  This  mention,  of  course,  excludes  the  Senator's  formula  for  un- 
guents, aperients,  cattle-nostrums,  and  pickled  pork, 
t  CXXXIV.    Cato,  De  Re  Rustica. 


80  WET  DAYS. 

are  disposed  to  assume  a  very  complacent  attitude,  as 
we  lean  upon  our  hoe-handles,  —  as  if  we  were  doing 
tall  things  in  the  way  of  illustrating  physiology  and  the 
cognate  sciences.  But  the  truth  is,  old  Laertes,  near 
three  thousand  years  ago,  in  his  slouch  cap  and  greasy 
beard,  was  hoeing  up  in  the  same  way  his  purslane  and 
twitch-grass,  in  his  bean-patch  on  the  hills  of  Ithaca. 
The  difference  between  us,  so  far  as  the  crop  and  the 
tools  go,  is,  after  all,  ignominiously  small.  He  dreaded 
the  weevil  in  his  beans,  and  we  the  club-foot  in  our  cab- 
bages ;  loe  have  the  "  Herald,"  and  he  had  none  ;  we 
have  "  Plantation-Bitters,"  and  he  had  his  jug  of  the 
Biblian  wine. 

Varro. 

~\/l[  VARRO,  another  Roman  farmer,  lies  between  the 
-*-"-*-•  same  covers  u  De  Re  Rtistica"  with  Cato,  and 
seems  to  have  had  more  literary  tact,  though  less  of 
blunt  sagacity.  Yet  he  challenges  at  once  our  confi- 
dence by  telling  us  so  frankly  the  occasion  of  his  writ- 
ing upon  such  a  subject.  Life,  he  says,  is  a  bubble,  — 
and  the  life  of  an  old  man  a  bubble  about  to  break.  He 
is  eighty,  and  must  pack  his  luggage  to  go  out  of  this 
world.  ("Annus  octogesimus  admonet  me,  ut  sarcinas 
colligam  antequam  proficiscar  e  vita")  Therefore  he 
writes  down  for  his  wife,  Fundania,  the  rules  by  which 
she  may  manage  the  farm. 


VARRO.  81 

And  a  very  respectably  old  lady  she  must  have  been, 
to  deal  with  the  villici  and  the  coloni,  if  her  age  bore 
suitable  relation  to  that  of  her  husband.  The  ripe 
maturity  of  many  of  the  rural  writers  I  have  introduced 
cannot  fail  to  arrest  attention.  Thus,  Xenophon  gained 
a  strength  in  his  JElian  fields  that  carried  him  into  the 
nineties ;  Cato  lived  to  be  over  eighty ;  and  now  we 
have  Varro,  writing  his  book  out  by  Tusculum  at  the 
same  age,  and  surviving  to  counsel  with  Fundania  ten 
years  more.  Pliny,  too,  (the  elder,)  who,  if  not  a  farmer, 
had  his  country-seats,  and  left  very  much  to  establish 
our  acquaintance  with  the  Roman  rural  life,  was  a  hale, 
much-enduring  man,  of  such  soldierly  habits  and  large 
abstemiousness  as  to  warrant  a  good  fourscore,  —  if  he 
had  not  fallen  under  that  murderous  cloud  of  ashes 
from  Mount  Vesuvius,  in  the  year  79. 

The  poets,  doubtless,  burnt  out  earlier,  as  they  usually 
do.  Virgil,  whom  I  shall  come  to  speak  of  presently, 
certainly  did:  he  died  at  fifty-one.  Tibullus,  whose 
opening  Idyl  is  as  pretty  a  bit  of  gasconade  about  living 
in  a  cottage  in  the  country,  upon  love  and  a  few  vege- 
tables, as  a  maiden  could  wish  for,  did  not  reach  the 
fifties  ;  and  Martial,  whose  "  Faustine  Villa,"  if  noth- 
ing else,  entitles  him  to  rural  oblation,  fell  short  of  the 
sixties.  Varro  himself  alludes  with  pride  to  the  greater 
longevity  of  those  who  live  in  the  country,  and  alleges 
as  a  reason,  "quod  Divina  natura  dedit  agros,  ctrs 


32  WET  DAYS. 

humana  cedificavit  urbes."  Is  not  this  the  possible 
original  of  Cowper's  "  God  made  the  country,  and  man 
made  the  town  "? 

The  old  man  is  very  full  in  his  rules  for  Fundania, 
not  only  as  regards  general  management,  but  in  respect 
to  the  choice  of  land,  the  determination  of  its  quali- 
ties, the  building  of  the  country-houses,  the  arrange- 
ment of  the  offices,  the  regimen  of  the  servants,  and 
the  treatment  of  the  various  manures  and  crops.  He 
clearly  urges  rotation,  has  faith  in  a  very  large  in- 
fluence of  the  moon,  counts  the  droppings  of  pigeons 
the  best  of  all  manures,  and  gives  the  sea-birds  very 
little  credit  for  their  contributions  to  the  same  office.* 
I  even  find  this  octogenarian  waxing  jocose  at  times. 
On  a  certain  occasion  he  says,  (it  is  mentioned  in  his 
book  of  poultry  and  birds,f)  "  I  paid  a  visit  with  a 
friend  to  Appius  Claudius,  the  Augur,  and  found  him 
seated,  with  Cornelius  Merula  [blackbird]  and  Fircel- 
lius  Pavo  [peacock]  on  his  left,  while  Minutius  Pica 
[magpie]  and  Petronius  Passer  [sparrow]  were  on  his 
right ;  whereupon  my  friend  says,  '  My  good  sir,  you 
receive  us  in  your  aviary,  seated  among  your  birds.' " 
The  jokelet  is  not  indeed  over-racy,  but  it  has  a  quaint 
twang,  coming  as  it  does  in  musty  type  over  so  many 
centuries,  from  the  pen  of  an  old  man  of  eighty,  who 

*  Lib.  I.  cap.  xxxviii.    "  Stcrcus  optimum  scribit  Cassius  esse  volu- 
crum,  privter  pahtstrium,  ac  nantium." 
t  Lib.  III.  cap.  ii.     De  Re  Runttcd. 


COLUMELLA.  33 

discussed  guinea-fowl  and  geese,  and  who  made  morn- 
ing calls  at  the  house  of  Judge  Appius  Claudius. 

Varro  indulges  in  some  sharp  sneers  at  those  who 
had  written  on  the  same  subject  before  him.  This  was 
natural  enough  in  a  man  of  his  pursuits :  he  had  writ- 
ten four  hundred  books. 

Columella. 

|F  Columella  we  know  scarcely  more  than  that  he 
lived  somewhere  about  the  time  of  Tiberius,  that 
he  was  a  man  of  wealth,  that  he  travelled  extensively 
through  Gaul,  Italy,  and  Greece,  observing  intelligently 
different  methods  of  culture,  and  that  he  has  given  the 
fullest  existing  compend  of  ancient  agriculture.  In  his 
chapter  upon  Gardening  he  warms  into  hexameters; 
but  the  rest  is  stately  and  euphonious  prose.  In  his 
opening  chapter,  he  does  not  forego  such  praises  of  the 
farmer's  life  as  sound  like  a  lawyer's  address  before  a 
county  -  society  on  a  fair -day.  Cincinnatus  and  his 
plough  come  in  for  it ;  and  Fabricius  and  Curius  Den- 
tatus  ;  with  which  names,  luckily,  our  orators  cannot 
whet  their  periods,  since  Columella's  mention  of  them 
is  about  all  we  know  of  their  farming. 

He  falls  into  the  way,  moreover,  of  lamenting,  as 
people  obstinately  continue  to  do,  the  "  good  old  times," 
when  men  were  better  than  "  now,"  and  when  the  rea- 
sonable delights  of  the  garden  and  the  fields  engrossed 


34  WET  DAYS. 

them  to  the  neglect  of  the  circus  and  the  theatres. 
But  when  he  opens  upon  his  subject  proper,  it  is  in 
grandiose  Spanish  style,  (he  was  a  native  of  Cadiz,) 
with  a  maxim  broad  enough  to  cover  all  possible  condi- 
tions :  —  "  Whoever  would  devote  himself  to  the  pursuit 
of  agriculture  should  understand  that  he  must  summon 
to  his  aid  —  prudence  in  business,  a  faculty  of  spend- 
ing, and  a  determination  to  work."  *  Or,  as  Tremellius 
says,  —  "  That  man  will  master  the  craft,  who  knows 
how  to  cultivate,  et poterit,  et  volet" 

This  is  comprehensive,  if  not  encouraging.  It  would 
be  hard  to  say,  indeed,  in  what  particular  this  summa- 
tion of  Columella  would  not  apply  to  the  pursuit  of 
almost  any  man.  That  "  faculty  of  spending  "  is  a  tre- 
mendous bolster  to  a  great  many  other  things  as  well 
as  farming.  Neither  parsons  nor  politicians  can  ignore 
it  wholly.  It  is  only  another  shape  of  the  poterit,  and 
the  poterit  only  a  scholarly  rendering  of  pounds  and 
pence.  As  if  Tremellius  had  said,  —  That  man  will 
make  his  way  at  farming  who  understands  the  business, 
who  has  the  money  to  apply  to  it,  and  who  is  willing  to 
bleed  freely.  There  are  a  great  many  people  who  have 
said  the  same  thing  since. 

With  a  kindred  sagacity  this  shrewd  Roman  advises 
a  man  to  slip  upon  his  farm  often,  in  order  that  his  stew- 

*  "  Qui  studium  agricolationi  dederit,  sciat  hacc  sibi  advocanda : 
prudentiam  rei,  facultatem  impendendi,  voluntatera  a<jendi." 


COLUMELLA.  35 

ard  may  keep  sharply  at  his  work ;  he  even  suggests 
that  the  landlord  make  a  feint  of  coming,  when  he  has 
no  intention  thereto,  that  he  may  gain  a  day's  alertness 
from  the  bailiff.  The  book  is  of  course  a  measure  of 
the  advances  made  in  farming  during  the  two  hundred 
years  elapsed  since  Cato's  time  ;  but  those  advances 
were  not  great.  There  was  advance  in  power  to  sys- 
tematize facts,  advance  in  literary  aptitude,  but  no  very 
noticeable  gain  in  methods  of  culture.  Columella  gives 
the  results  of  wider  observation,  and  of  more  persistent 
study ;  but,  for  aught  I  can  see,  a  man  could  get  a  crop 
of  lentils  as  well  with  Cato  as  with  Columella ;  a  man 
would  house  his  flocks  and  servants  as  well  out  of  the 
one  as  the  other ;  in  short,  a  man  would  grow  into  the 
"  faculty  of  spending "  as  swiftly  under  the  teachings 
of  the  Senator  as  of  the  later  writer  of  the  reign  of 
Tiberius. 

It  is  to  be  observed,  however,  that,  so  far  as  one  can 
judge  from  the  work  of  Columella,  farming  was  now 
conducted  upon  a  grander  scale.  The  days  when  Cin- 
cinnatus  dug  among  his  own  cabbages,  and  Curius 
Dentatus  bent  his  own  back  to  the  sarculum,  were  long 
gone  by,  and  were  looked  back  upon,  I  dare  say,  by  the 
first  readers  of  the  elegant  Columella,  as  we  look  back 
to  the  days  of  Captain  Smith,  Pocahontas,  and  corn-cakes 
baked  in  the  ashes.  The  details  of  a  Roman  farmery 
which  are  entered  upon  by  this  author  are  of  an  extent 
and  of  a  nicety  which  would  compare  with  an  East- 


36  WET  DAYS. 

Lothian  steading.  He  divides  the  entire  establishment 
into  three  distinct  parts :  the  villa  urbana,  the  villa  rus- 
tica,  and  the  fructuaria ;  or,  as  we  might  say,  the  man- 
sion-house, the  laborers'  cottages,  and  the  out-buildings. 
I  give  a  reduced  drawing  of  such  a  design  from 
Castell's  "  Villas  of  the  Ancients."  *  A  huge  kitchen,  it 

*  The  following  letters  and  numbers  indicate  the  several  parts:  — 

A.    THE  VILLA  URBANA. 

a.  Inner  court.  h.  Servants'  hall. 

b.  Summer  dining-room.  f.   Dressing-room  of  baths. 

c.  Winter  dining-room.  k.  Bathing-room. 

d.  Withdrawing-rooms.  /.   Warm  cell. 

e.  Winter  apartments.  in.  Sweating-room. 

f.  Summer  apartments.  n.  Furnace. 

g.  Library.  o.  Porters'  lodges. 

B.    VILLA  RUSTICA  AND  FRUCTUARIA. 

1.  Inner  farm-yard.  23.  Sheepfold. 

2.  Pond.  24.  Shepherds. 

3.  Outer  yard  25.  Goat-pens. 

4.  Kitchen.  26.  Goatherds. 

5.  New  wine.  27.  Dog-kennels. 

6.  Old  wine.  28.  Cart-houses. 

7.  Housekeeper.  29.  Hog-sties. 

8.  Spinning-room.  30.  Hog-keepers. 

9.  To  sick-room.  31.  Bakehouse. 

10.  Lodges.  32.  Mill. 

11.  Stairs  to  bailiff's  room.  33.  Outer  pond. 

12.  Keeper  of  stoves.  34.  Dunghills. 

13.  Stairs  to  work-house.  35.  Wood  and  fodder. 

14.  Wine-press.  36.  Hen-yard. 

15.  Oil-press.  37,  38.  Dove-houses. 

16.  Granaries.  39.  Thrushes. 
'    17.  Fruit-room.  40.  Poultry. 

18.  Master  of  cattle.  41.  Poulterers. 

19.  Ox-stalls.  42.  Porter. 

20.  Herdsmen.  43.  Dog-kennels. 

21.  Stables.  44.  Orchard. 

*  22.  Grooms.  45.  Kitchen-garden 


COLUA1ELLA. 


37 


A  ROMAN  FAIOJERY. 


38  WET   DAYS. 

will  be  seen,  forms  a  prominent  feature  of  the  "  rustic  " 
part  of  the  establishment,  and  opening  directly  upon 
the  kitchen  are  the  ox-stalls.  Behind  these  is  a  court 
flanked  by  the  herdsmen's  quarters,  and  by  the  wine- 
cellars  ;  and  still  farther  in  the  rear,  a  larger  court 
with  goat-pens,  cells  for  the  goatherds,  and  kennels 
for  dogs.  In  short,  it  is  an  establishment  which  would 
have  amazed  old  Hesiod  with  his  couplet  of  ploughs 
and  his  "  sharp-toothed  cur." 

Columella  urges,  like  Cato,  frequent  ploughings, — 
suggesting  that  they  be  repeated  until  no  trace  of  the 
furrows  can  be  detected,  by  which  we  may  infer  that 
the  ploughs  carried  but  a  scanty  mould-board.  He  ad- 
vises that  manures  be  turned  under  immediately  after 
their  application,  and  shows  himself  up  to  the  best  prac- 
tice of  our  time  in  directing  that  the  manure-heap 
be  protected  from  the  weather.  He  commends  the 
lucern  and  the  cytisus,  is  full  in  the  matter  of  all 
field-crops,  and  his  garden-poem  shows  gleams  of  sunny 
fruit,  from  the  apple  to  the  pomegranate.  His  in- 
structions in  respect  of  poultry  are  of  the  amplest,  and, 
bating  a  little  heathen  wickedness  of  treatment,  are  bet- 
ter than  the  majority  of  poulterers  could  give  us  now. 

It  is  but  dull  work  to  follow  all  these  teachings  ; 
here  and  there  I  warm  into  a  little  sympathy,  as  I 
catch  sight,  in  his  Latin  dress,  of  our  old  friend  Cur- 
culio ;  here  and  there  I  sniff  a  fruit  that  seems  famil- 


A  ROMAN  DREAM.  39 

iar,  —  as  the  fraga,  or  a  morum  ;  and  here  and  there 
comes  blushing  into  the  crabbed  text  the  sweet  name 
of  some  home-flower,  —  a  lily,  a  narcissus,  or  a  rose. 
The  chief  value  of  the  work  of  Columella,  however, 
lies  in  its  clear  showing-forth  of  the  relative  importance 
given  to  different  crops,  under  Roman  culture,  and  to 
the  raising  of  cattle,  poultry,  fish,  etc.,  as  compared  with 
crops.  Knowing  this,  we  know  very  much  that  will 
help  us  toward  an  estimate  of  the  domestic  life  of  the 
Romans.  "We  learn,  with  surprise,  how  little  they  re- 
garded their  oxen,  save  as  working-animals,  —  whether 
the  milk-white  steers  of  Clitumnus,  or  the '  dun  Cam- 
panian  cattle,  whose  descendants  show  their  long- 
horned  stateliness  to  this  day  in  the  Roman  forum. 
The  sheep,  too,  whether  of  Tarentum  or  of  Canusium, 
were  regarded  as  of  value  chiefly  for  their  wool  and 
milk ;  and  it  is  surely  amazing,  that  men  who  could 
appreciate  the  iambics  of  Horace  and  the  eloquence  of 
Cicero  should  have  shown  so  little  fancy  for  a  fat 
saddle  of  mutton  or  for  a  mottled  sirloin  of  beef. 


A  Roman  Dream. 

T  CHANGE  from  Columella  to  Virgil,  and  from  Virgil 

-  back  to   some  pleasant  Idyl  of  Tibullus,  and  from 

Tibullus  to  the  pretty  prate  of  Horace  about  the  Sa- 

bine    Hills ;  I  stroll   through  Pliny's  villa,  eying  the 


40  WET  DAYS. 

clipped  box-trees  ;  I  hear  the  rattle  in  the  tennis-court 
I  watch  the  tall  Roman  girls  — 

"  Grandes  virgines  proborum  colonorum  "  — 

marching  along  with  their  wicker-baskets  filled  with 
curds  and  fresh-plucked  thrushes,  until  there  comes 
over  me  a  confusion  of  times  and  places. 

—  The  sound  of  the  battle  of  to-day  dies  ;  the  fresh 
blood-stains  fade  ;  and  I  seem  to  wake  upon  the  heights 
of  Tusculum,  in  the  days  of  Tiberius.  The  farm-flat 
below  is  a  miniature  Campagna,  along  which  I  see 
stretching  straight  to  the  city  the  shining  pavement  of 
the  Via  Tusculana.  The  spires  yonder  melt  into  mist, 
and  in  place  of  them  I  see  the  marble  house-walls  of 
which  Augustus  boasted.  As  yet  the  grander  mon- 
uments of  the  Empire  are  not  built  ;  but  there  is  a 
blotch  of  cliff  which  may  be  the  Tarpeian  Eock,  and 
beside  it  a  huge  hulk  of  building  on  the  Capitoline 
Hill,  where  sat  the  Roman  Senate.  A  little  hitherward 
are  the  gay  turrets  of  the  villa  of  Maecenas,  and  of  the 
princely  houses  on  the  Palatine  Hill,  and  in  the  fore- 
ground the  stately  tomb  of  Caecilia  Metella.  I  see  the 
barriers  of  a  hippodrome  (where  now  howling  jockeys 
make  the  twilight  hideous)  ;  a  gestatio,  with  its  lines  of 
trees,  is  before  me,  and  the  velvety  lavender-green  of 
olive-orchards  covers  the  hills  behind.  Vines  grow 
upon  the  slope  eastward,  — 


A   ROMAN  DREAM.  41 

"  Neve  tibi  ad  solem  vergant  vineta  cadentem,"  — 

twining  around,  and  flinging  off  a  great  wealth  of  ten- 
drils from  their  supporting-poles  (pedamenta).  The 
figs  begin  to  show  the  purple  bloom  of  fruitage,  and  the 
villicus,  who  has  just  now  come  in  from  the  atriohtm, 
reports  a  good  crop,  and  asks  if  it  would  not  be  well  to 
apply  a  few  loads  of  marl  (tofacea)  to  the  summer  fal- 
low, which  Cato  is  just  now  breaking  up  with  the  Cam- 
panian  steers,  for  barley. 

Scipio,  a  stanch  Numidian,  has  gone  to  market  with 
three  asses  loaded  with  cabbages  and  asparagus.  Vil- 
licus tells  me  that  the  poultry  in  the  fattening-coops  (as 
close-shut  as  the  Strasburg  geese)  *  are  doing  well,  and 
he  has  added  a  soupfon  of  sweetening  to  their  barley- 
gruel.  The  young  doves  have  their  legs  faithfully  bro- 
ken, ("  obteras  crura")  and  are  placidly  fattening  on 
their  stumps.  The  thrush-house  is  properly  darkened, 
only  enough  light  entering  to  show  the  food  to  some 
three  or  four  thousand  birds,  which  are  in  course  of 
cramming  for  the  market.  The  cochlearium  has  a  good 
stock  of  snails  and  mussels  ;  and  the  little  dormice  are 
growing  into  fine  condition  for  an  approaching  Imperial 
banquet. 

Villicus  reports  the  clip  of  the  Tarentine  sheep  un- 

*  "  Locus  ad  hanc  rem  desideratur  maxime  calidus,  et  minimi  lumi- 
nis,  in  quo  singulaj  caveis  angustioribus  vel  sportis  inclusx  pendcant 
avcs,  sed  ita  coarctatae,  ne  versari  possint."  —  Columella  Lib.  VIII. 
cap.  vii. 


42  WET  DAYS. 

usually  fine,  and  free  from  burrs.  The  new  must  is  all 
a-foam  in  the  vinaria ;  and  around  the  inner  cellar 
(gaudendem  est  /)  there  is  a  tier  of  urns,  as  large  as 
school-boys,  brimming  with  ripe  Falernian. 

If  it  were  not  stormy,  I  might  order  out  the  farm- 
chariot,  or  curriculum,  which  is,  after  all,  but  a  low, 
dumpy  kind  of  horse-cart,  and  take  a  drive  over  the 
lava  pavement  of  the  Via  Tusculana,  to  learn  what  news 
is  astir,  and  what  the  citizens  talk  of  in  the  forum.  Is 
all  quiet  upon  the  Rhine  ?  How  is  it  possibly  with 
Germanicus  ?  And  what  of  that  story  of  the  arrest 
of  Seneca  ?  It  could  hardly  have  happened,  they  say, 
in  the  good  old  days  of  the  Republic. 

And  with  this  mention,  as  with  the  sound  of  a  gun, 
the  Roman  pastoral  dream  is  broken.  The  Campagna, 
the  olive-orchards,  the  columbarium,  fall  back  to  their 
old  places  in  the  blurred  type  of  Columella.  The  Cam- 
panian  steers  are  unyoked,  and  stabled  in  the  text  f  of 
Varro.  The  turrets  of  the  villa  of  Maecenas,  and  of 
the  palaces  of  Sylla  and  the  Caesars,  give  place  to  the 
spires  of  a  New-England  town,  —  southward  of  which 
I  see  through  the  mist  a  solitary  flag  flying  over  a 
soldiers'  hospital.  It  reminds  of  nearer  and  deadlier 
perils  than  ever  environed  the  Roman  Republic,  — 
perils  out  of  which,  if  the  wisdom  and  courage  of  the 
people  do  not  find  a  way,  some  new  Caesar  will  point  it 
with  the  sword. 


A   ROMAN  DREAM.  43 

Looking  northward,  I  see  there  is  a  bight  of  blue  in 
the  sky ;  and  a  lee  set  of  dark-gray  and  purple  clouds 
is  folding  down  over  the  eastern  horizon,  —  against 
which  the  spires  and  the  flag  show  clearer  than  ever. 
It  means  that  the  rain  has  stopped ;  and  the  rain  hav- 
ing stopped,  my  in-door  work  is  done. 


SECOND  DAY. 


Virgil. 

the  checkered  fields  below  are  trace- 
able  now  only  by  the  brown  lines  of  fences  and 
the  sparse  trees  that  mark  the  hedge-rows.  The  white 
of  the  houses  and  of  the  spires  of  the  town  is  seen  dimly 
through  the  snow,  and  seems  to  waver  and  shift  position 
like  the  sails  and  spars  of  ships  seen  through  fog.  And 
straightway  upon  this  image  of  ships  and  swaying  spars 
I  go  sailing  back  to  the  farm-land  of  the  past,  and 
sharpen  my  pen  for  another  day's  work  among  the 
old  farm-writers. 

I  suspect  Virgil  was  never  a  serious  farmer.  I  am 
confident  he  never  had  one  of  those  callosities  upon 
the  inner  side  of  his  right  thumb  which  come  of  the 
lower  thole  of  a  scythe-snath,  after  a  week's  mowing. 
But  he  had  that  quick  poet's  eye  which  sees  at  a 
glance  what  other  men  see  only  in  a  day.  Not  a  shrub 
or  a  tree,  not  a  bit  of  fallow  ground  or  of  nodding  lentils 


VIRGIL.  45 

escaped  his  observation  ;  not  a  bird  or  a  bee  ;  not  even 
the  mosquitoes,  which  to  this  day  hover  pestiferously 
about  the  low-lying  sedge-lands  of  Mantua.  His  first 
pastoral,  little  known  now,  and  rarely  printed  with  his 
works,  is  inscribed  Culex.* 

Young  Virgil  appears  to  have  been  of  a  delicate  con- 
stitution, and  probably  left  the  fever-bearing  regions  of 
the  Mincio  for  the  higher  plain  of  Milan  for  sanitary 
reasons,  as  much  as  the  other,  —  of  studying,  as  men 
of  his  parts  did  study,  Greek  and  philosophy.  There  is 
a  story,  indeed,  that  he  studied  and  practised  farriery, 
as  his  father  had  done  before  him  ;  and  Jethro  Tull,  in 
his  crude  onslaught  upon  what  he  calls  the  Virgilian 
husbandry,  (chap,  ix.,)  intimates  that  a  farrier  could  be 
no  way  fit  to  lay  down  the  rules  for  good  farm-practice. 
But  this  story  of  his  having  been  a  horse-doctor  rests, 
so  far  as  I  can  discover,  only  on  this  flimsy  tradition,  — 
that  the  young  poet,  on  his  way  to  the  South  of  Italy, 
after  leaving  Milan  and  Mantua,  fell  in  at  Eome  with 
the  master-of-horse  to  Octavianus,  and  gave  such  shrewd 
hints  to  that  official  in  regard  to  the  points  and  failings 
of  certain  favorite  horses  of  the  Roman  Triumvir  (for 
Octavianus  had  not  as  yet  assumed  the  purple)  as  to 
gain  a  presentation  to  the  future  Augustus,  and  rich 
marks  of  his  favor. 

It  is  certain  that  the  poet  journeyed  to  the  South, 

*  "  Lusimus:  hsec  propter  Guilds  sint  carmina  dicta." 


46  WET  DAYS 

and  that  thenceforward  the  glorious  sunshine  of  Baiae 
and  of  the  Neapolitan  shores  gave  a  color  to  his  poems 
and  to  his  life. 

Yet  his  agricultural  method  was  derived  almost 
wholly  from  his  observation  in  the  North  of  Italy.  He 
never  forgot  the  marshy  borders  of  the  Mincio,  nor  the 
shores  of  beautiful  Benacus  (Lago  di  Garda)  ;  who 
knows  but  he  may  some  time  have  driven  his  flocks 
a-field  on  the  very  battle-ground  of  Solferino  ? 

But  the  ruralities  of  Virgil  take  a  special  interest 
from  the  period  in  which  they  were  written.  He  fol- 
lowed upon  the  heel  of  long  and  desolating  intestine 
wars, —  a  singing-bird  in  the  wake  of  vultures.  No 
wonder  the  voice  seemed  strangely  sweet. 

The  eloquence  of 'the  Senate  had  long  ago  lost  its 
traditionary  power  ;  the  sword  was  every  way  keener. 
Who  should  listen  to  the  best  of  speakers,  when  Pom- 
pey  was  in  the  forum,  covered  with  the  spoils  of  the 
East  ?  Who  should  care  for  Cicero's  periods,  when  the 
magnificent  conqueror  of  Gaul  is  skirting  the  Umbrian 
Marshes,  making  straight  for  the  Rubicon  and  Rome  ? 

Then  came  Pharsalia,  with  its  bloody  trail,  from 
which  Caesar  rises  only  to  be  slaughtered  in  the  Senate- 
Chamber.  Next  conies  the  long  duel  between  the 
Triumvirate  and  the  palsied  representatives  of  the 
Republican  party.  Philippi  closes  that  interlude ;  and 
there  is  a  new  duel  between  Octavianus-  and  Antony 


VIRGIL.  47 

(Lepidus  counting  for  nothing).  The  gallant  lover  of 
Cleopatra  is  pitted  against  a  gallant  general  who  is 
a  nephew  to  the  first  Caesar.  The  fight  comes  off  at 
Actiuni,  and  the  lover  is  the  loser ;  the  pretty  Egyptian 
Jezebel,  with  her  golden-prowed  galleys,  goes  sweeping 
down,  under  a  full  press  of  wind,  to  swell  the  squadron 
of  the  conqueror.  The  winds  will  always  carry  the 
Jezebels  to  the  conquering  side. 

Such,  then,  was  the  condition  of  Italy,  —  its  families 
divided,  its  grain-fields  trampled  down  by  the  Volscian 
cavalry,  its  houses  red  with  fresh  blood-stains,  its  homes 
beyond  the  Po  parcelled  out  to  lawless  returning  sol- 
diers, its  public  security  poised  on  the  point  of  the 
sword  of  Augustus,  —  when  Virgil's  Bucolics  appear :  a 
pastoral  thanksgiving  for  the  patrimony  that  had  been 
spared  him,  through  court-favor. 

There  is  a  show  of  gross  adulation  that  makes  one 
blush  for  his  manhood  ;  but  withal  he  is  a  most  lithe- 
some poet,  whose  words  are  like  honeyed  blossoms,  and 
whose  graceful  measure  is  like  a  hedge  of  bloom  that 
sways  with  spring  breezes,  and  spends  perfume  as  it 
sways. 

The  Georgics  were  said  to  have  been  written  at  the 
suggestion  of  Maecenas,  a  cultivated  friend  of  Augustus, 
who,  like  many  another  friend  of  the  party  in  power, 
had  made  a  great  fortune  out  of  the  wars  that  desolated 
Italy.  He  made  good  use  of  it,  however,  in  patronizing 


43  WET  DAYS. 

\rirgil,  and  in  bestowing  a  snug  farm  in  the  Sabine  coun- 
try upon  Horace  ;  where  I  had  the  pleasure  of  drink- 
ing goats'  milk  —  "  dulci  digne  mero  "  —  in  the  spring 
of  1846. 

There  can  be  no  doubt  but  Virgil  had  been  an  atten- 
tive reader  of  Xenophon,  of  Hesiod,  of  Cato,  and  of 
Varro ;  otherwise  he  certainly  would  have  been  unwor- 
thy of  the  task  he  had  undertaken,  —  that  of  laying 
down  the  rules  of  good  husbandry  in  a  way  that  should 
insure  the  reading  of  them,  and  kindle  a  love  for  the 
pursuit. 

I  suspect  that  Virgil  was  not  only  a  reader  of  all  that 
had  been  written  on  the  subject,  but  that  he  was  also  an 
insistant  questioner  of  every  sagacious  landholder  and 
every  sturdy  farmer  that  he  fell  in  with,  whether  on  the 
Campanian  hills  or  at  the  house  of  Maecenas.  How 
else  does  a  man  accomplish  himself  for  a  didactic  work 
relating  to  matters  of  fact?  I  suspect,  moreover, 
that  Virgil,  during  those  half  dozen  years^  in  which  he 
was  engaged  upon  this  task,  lost  no  opportunity  of  in- 
specting every  beehive  that  fell  in  his  way,  of  measur- 
ing the  points  and  graces  of  every  pretty  heifer  he  saw 
in  the  fields,  and  of  noting  with  the  eye  of  an  artist 
the  color  of  every  furrow  that  glided  from  the  plough. 
It  is  inconceivable  that  a  man  of  his  intellectual  address 
should  have  given  so  much  of  literary  toil  to  a  work 
that  was  not  in  every  essential  fully  up  to  the  best 


VIRGIL.  49 

practice  of  the  day.  Five  years,  it  is  said,  were  given 
to  the  accomplishment  of  this  short  poem.  What  say 
our  poetasters  to  this  ?  Fifteen  hundred  days,  we  will 
suppose,  to  less  than  twice  as  many  lines  ;  blocking  out 
four  or  five  for  his  morning's  task,  and  all  the  evening 
—  for  he  was  a  late  worker  —  licking  them  into  shape, 
as  a  bear  licks  her  cubs. 

But  what  good  is  in  it  all  ?  Simply  as  a  work  of 
art,  it  will  be  cherished  through  all  tune,  —  an  earlier 
Titian,  whose  color  can  never  fade.  It  was,  besides,  a 
most  beguiling  peace-note,  following  upon  the  rude  blasts 
of  war.  It  gave  a  new  charm  to  forsaken  homesteads. 
Under  the  Virgilian  leadership,  Monte  Gennaro  and  the 
heights  of  Tusculum  beckon  the  Romans  to  the  fields ; 
the  meadows  by  reedy  Thrasymene  are  made  golden 
with  doubled  crops.  The  Tarentine  sheep  multiply 
around  Benacus,  and  crop  close  those  dark  bits  of 
herbage  which  have  been  fed  by  the  blood  of  Roman 
citizens. 

Thus  much  for  the  magic  of  the  verse  ;  but  there  is 
also  sound  farm-talk  in  Virgil.  I  am  aware  that  Seneca, 
living  a  few  years  after  him,  invidiously  objects  that 
he  was  more  careful  of  his  language  than  of  his  doc- 
trine, and  that  Columella  quotes  him  charily,  —  that 
the  collector  of  the  "  Geoponics  "  ignores  him,  and  that 
Tull  gives  him  clumsy  raillery  ;  but  I  have  yet  to  see  in 
what  respect  his  system  falls  short  of  Columella,  or  how 
5 


50  WET  DAYS. 

it  differs  materially,  except  in  fulness,  from  the  teachings 
of  Crescenzi,  who  wrote  a  thousand  years  and  more 
later.  There  is  little  in  the  poem,  save  its  superstitions, 
from  which  a  modern  farmer  can  dissent.* 

We  are  hardly  launched  upon  the  first  Georgic  before 
we  find  a  pretty  suggestion  of  the  theory  of  rotation,  — 

"  Sic  quoque  mutatis  requiescunt  foetibus  arva." 

Rolling  and  irrigation  both  glide  into  the  verse  a  few 
lines  later.  He  insists  upon  the  choice  of  the  best 
seed,  advises  to  keep  the  drains  clear,  even  upon  holy- 
days,  (268,)  and  urges,  in  common  with  a  great  many 
shrewd  New-England  farmers,  to  cut  light  meadows 
while  the  dew  is  on,  (288-9,)  even  though  it  involve 
night-work.  Some,  too,  he  says,  whittle  their  torches 
by  fire-light,  of  a  winter's  night ;  and  the  good  wife, 
meantime,  lifting  a  song  of  cheer,  plies  the  shuttle 
merrily. 

In  the  opening  of  the  second  book,  Virgil  insists, 
very  wisely,  upon  proper  adaptation  of  plantations  of 
fruit-trees  to  different  localities  and  exposures,  —  a  mat- 
ter which  is  far  too  little  considered  by  fanners  of  our 
day.  His  views  in  regard  to  propagation,  whether  by 
cuttings,  layers,  or  seed,  are  in  agreement  with  those 

*  Of  course,  I  reckon  the 

"  Exoeptantque  leres  auras ;  et  sscpe  sine  ullis,"  etc., 
(Lib.  III.  274,)  as  among  the  superstitions. 


VIRGIL.  51 

of  the  best  Scotch  nurserymen ;  and  in  the  matter  of 
grafting  or  inoculation,  he  errs  (?)  only  in  declaring 
certain  results  possible,  which  even  modern  gardening 
has  not  accomplished.  Dryden  shall  help  us  to  the 
pretty  falsehood :  — 

"  The  thin-leaved  arbute  hazel-grafts  receives, 
And  planes  huge  apples  bear,  that  bore  but  leaves. 
Thus  mastful  beech  the  bristly  chestnut  bears, 
And  the  wild  ash  is  white  with  blooming  pears, 
And  greedy  swine  from  grafted  elms  are  fed 
With  falling  acorns,  that  on  oaks  are  bred." 

It  is  curious  how  generally  this  belief  in  something 
like  promiscuous  grafting  was  entertained  by  the  old 
writers.  Palladius  repeats  it  with  great  unction  in  his 
poem  "  De  Insitione,"  two  or  three  centuries  later ;  * 
and  in  the  tenth  book  of  the  "  Geoponics,"  a  certain 
Damogerontis  (whoever  he  may  have  been)  says,  (cap. 
Ixv.,)  "  Some  rustic  writers  allege  that  nut-trees  and 
resinous  trees  (jo.  p-qrlv-qv  l^orm)  cannot  be  success- 
fully grafted ;  but,"  he  continues,  "  this  is  a  mistake ;  I 
have  myself  grafted  the  pistache-nut  into  the  tereben- 
thine." 

Is  it  remotely  possible  that  these  old  gentlemen  un- 
derstood the  physiology  of  plants  better  than  we  ? 

As  I  return  to  Virgil,  and  slip  along  the  dulcet  lines, 

*  The  same  writer,  under  Februarius,  Tit.  XVII.,  gives  a  very  cu- 
rious method  of  grafting  the  willow,  so  that  it  may  bear  peaches>. 


52  WET  DAYS. 

I  come  upon  this  cracking  laconism,  in  which  is  com- 
pacted as  much  wholesome  advice  as  a  loose  farm-writer 
would  spread  over  a  page :  — 

"  Laudato  ingentia  rura, 
Exigtram  colito  " : 

"  Praise  big  farms  ;  stick  by  little  ones."  The  wisdom 
of  the  advice  for  these  days  of  steam-engines,  reapers, 
and  high  wages,  is  more  than  questionable  ;  but  it  is  in 
perfect  agreement  with  the  notions  of  a  great  many  old- 
fashioned  farmers  who  live  nearer  to  the  heathen  past 
than  they  imagine. 

The  cattle  of  Virgil  are  certainly  no  prize-animals. 
Any  good  committee  would  vote  them  down  inconti- 
nently :  — 

"  Cui  turpe  caput,  cui  plurima  cervix," 


(iii.  52,)  would  not  pass  muster  at  any  fair  of  the  last 
century,  whatever  Professor  Daubeny  may  say. 

The   horses   are  better;  there  is  the  dash  of  high 

o 

venture  in  them  ;  they  have  snuffed  battle ;  their  limbs 
are  suppled  to  a  bounding  gallop,  —  as  where  in  the 
./Eneid  every  resounding  hoof -beat  upon  the  dusty 
plain  is  repeated  in  the  pauses  of  the  poem.* 

The  fourth  book  of  the  Georgics  is  full  of  the  mur- 
mur of  bees,  showing  how  the  poet  had  listened,  and 
had  loved  to  listen.  After  describing  minutely  how 

*  "  Quadrupedante  putrem  sonitu  quatit  ungula  campum." 


VIRGIL.  53 

and  where  the  homes  of  the  honey-makers  are  to  be 
placed,  he  offers  them  this  delicate  attention:  — 

"  Then  o'er  the  running  stream  or  standing  lake 
A  passage  for  thy  weary  people  make ; 
"With  osier  floats  the  standing  water  strew ; 
Of  massy  stones  make  bridges,  if  it  flow ; 
That  basking  in  the  sun  thy  bees  may  lie, 
And,  resting  there,  their  flaggy  pinions  dry." 

DRYDEN. 

Who  cannot  see  -from  this  how  tenderly  the  man  had 
watched  the  buzzing  yellow-jackets,  as  they  circled  and 
stooped  in  broad  noon  about  some  little  pool  in  the 
rills  that  flow  into  the  Lago  di  Garda  ?  For  hereabout, 
of  a  surety,  the  poet  once  sauntered  through  the  noon- 
tides, while  his  flock  cropped  the  "  milk-giving  cytisus,"* 
upon  the  hills. 

And  charming  hills  they  are,  as  my  own  eyes  can 
witness :  nay,  my  little  note-book  of  travel  shall  itself 
tell  the  story.  (The  third  shelf,  upon  the  right,  my 
boy.) 

*  This  plant,  so  often  mentioned  and  commended  by  classic  writers, 
Prof.  Daubeny  believes  to  be  identical  with  the  Medicar/o  arborea  of 
the  Greek  Archipelago :  p.  170,  Roman  Husbandry.  Heresbach  (transla- 
tion of  Barnaby  Googe)  describes  it  as  "a  plant  all  hairy  &  whytish, 
as  Rhamnus  is,  having  branches  halfe  a  yard  long  &  more,  where- 
upon groweth  leavis  like  unto  Fenigreke  or  clover,  but  something 
lesse,  having  a  rising  crest  in  the  midst  of  them."  —  Arlof  Hus~ 
bandry,  Book  I. 


54  WET  DAYS. 

An  Episode. 

NO  matter  how  many  years  ago,  —  I  was  going  from 
Milan,  (to  which  place  I  had  come  by  Piacenza 
and  Lodi,)  on  my  way  to  Verona  by  Brescia  and  Pes- 
chiera.  At  Desenzano,  or  thereabout,  the  blue  lake  of 
Beuaco  first  appeared.  A  few  of  the  higher  mountains 
that  bounded  the  view  were  still  capped  with  snow, 
though  it  was  latter  May.  Through  fragrant  locusts 
and  mulberry-trees,  and  between  irregular  hedges,  we 
dashed  down  across  the  isthmus  of  Sermione,  where 
the  ruins  of  a  Roman  castle  flout  the  sky. 

Hedges  and  orchards  and  fragrant  locusts  still  hem 
the  way,  as  we  touch  the  lake,  and,  rounding  its  south- 
ern skirt,  come  in  sight  of  the  grim  bastions  of  Pes- 
chiera.  A  Hungarian  sentinel,  lithe  and  tall,  I  see 
pacing  the  rampart,  against  the  blue  of  the  sky.  Wom- 
en and  girls  come  trooping  into  the  narrow  road, — 
for  it  is  near  sunset,  —  with  their  aprons  full  of  mul- 
berry-leaves. A  bugle  sounds  somewhere  within  the 
fortress,  and  the  mellow  music  swims  the  water,  and 
beats  with  melodious  echo  —  boom  on  boom  —  against 
Sermione  and  the  farther  shores. 

The  sun  just  dipping  behind  the  western  mountains, 
with  a  disk  all  golden,  pours  down  a  flood  of  yellow 
light,  tinting  the  mulberry-orchards,  the  edges  of  the 
Roman  castle,  the  edges  of  the  waves  where  the  lake 


AN  EPISODE.  55 

stirs,  and  spreading  out  into  a  bay  of  gold  where  the 
lake  lies  still. 

Virgil  never  saw  a  prettier  sight  there  ;  and  I  was 
thinking  of  him,  and  of  my  old  master  beating  off 
spondees  and  dactyls  with  a  red  ruler  on  his  thread- 
bare knee,  when  the  sun  sunk  utterly,  and  the  purple 
shadows  dipped  us  all  in  twilight. 

"  E  arrivato,  Signore !  "  said  the  vetturino.  True 
enough,  I  was  at  the  door  of  the  inn  of  Peschiera,  and 
snuffed  the  stew  of  an  Italian  supper. 

Virgil  closes  the  first  book  of  the  Georgics  with  a 
poetic  forecast  of  the  time  when  ploughmen  should 
touch  upon  rusted  war-weapons  in  their  work,  and  turn 
out  helmets  empty,  and  bones  of  dead  soldiers, — 
as  indeed  they  might,  and  did.  But  how  unlike  a  poem 
it  will  sound,  when  the  schools  are  opened  on  the  Rap- 
pahannock  again,  and  the  boy  scans,  —  choking  down 
his  sobs,  — 

"  Aut  gravibus  rastris  galeas  pulsabit  inanes, 
Grandiaque  effossis  mirabitur  ossa  sepulcris," 

and  the  master  veils  his  eyes ! 

I  fear  that  Virgil  was  harmed  by  the  Georgican 
success,  and  became  more  than  ever  an  adulator  of  the 
ruling  powers.  I  can  fancy  him  at  a  palace  tea-drink- 
ing, where  pretty  court-lips  give  some  witty  turn  to  his 
"  Sic  Vos,  non  Vobis"  and  pretty  court-eyes  glance  ten- 
derly at  Master  Maro,  who  blushes,  and  asks  some 


56  WET  DAYS. 

Sabina  (not  Poppaea)  after  Tibullus  and  his  Delia. 
But  a  great  deal  is  to  be  forgiven  to  a  man  who  can 
turn  compliments  as  Virgil  turned  them.  What  can  be 
more  exquisite  than  that  allusion  to  the  dead  boy  Mar- 
cellus,  in  the  Sixth  Book  of  the  ^Eneid  ?  He  is  read- 
ing it  aloud  before  Augustus,  at  Rome.  Maecenas  is 
there  from  his  tall  house  upon  the  Esquiline  ;  possibly 
Horace  has  driven  over  from  the  Sabine  country,  —  for, 
alone  of  poets,  he  was  jolly  enough  to  listen  to  the 
reading  of  a  poem  not  his  own.  Above  all,  the  calm- 
faced  Octavia,  Caesar's  sister,  and  the  rival  of  Cleo- 
patra, is  present.  A  sad  match  she  has  made  of  it 
with  Antony ;  and  her  boy  Marcellus  is  just  now  dead, 

—  dying   down  at  Baiaa,  notwithstanding  the  care  of 
that  famous  doctor,  Antonius  Musa,  first  of  hydropaths. 

Virgil  had  read  of  the  Sibyl,  —  of  the  entrance  to 
Hades,  —  of  the  magic  metallic  bough  that  made 
Charon  submissive,  —  of  the  dog  Cerberus,  and  his  sop, 

—  of  the  Greeks  who  welcomed  JEneas,  —  then  of  the 
father  Anchises,  who   told   the   son  what  brave   fate 
should  belong  to  him  and  his,  —  warning  him,   mean- 
time,  with   alliterative   beauty,   against   the   worst   of 
wars, — 

"  Ne,  pueri,  ne  tanta  animis  assuescite  bella, 
Neu  patriae  validas  in  viscera  vertite  vires,"  — 

too  late,  alas  !  There  were  those  about  Augustus  who 
could  sigh  over  this. 


AN  EPISODE.  57 

Virgil  reads  on :  Anchises  is  pointing  out  to  ./Eneas 
that  old  Marcellus  who  fought  Hannibal  ;  and  beside 
him,  full  of  beauty,  strides  a  young  hero  about  whom 
the  attendants  throng. 

"And  who  is  the  young  hero,"  demands  JEncas, 
"  over  whose  brow  a  dark  fate  is  brooding  ?  " 

(The  bereaved  Octavia  is  listening  with  a  yearning 
heart.) 

And  Anchises,  the  tears  starting  to  his  eyes,  says,  — 

"  Seek  not,  O  son,  to  fathom  the  sorrows  of  thy  kin- 
dred. The  Fates,  that  lend  him,  shall  claim  him ;  a 
jealous  Heaven  cannot  spare  such  gifts  to  Rome.  Then, 
what  outcry  of  manly  grief  shall  shake  the  battlements 
of  the  city !  what  a  wealth  of  mourning  shall  Father  Ti- 
ber see,  as  he  sweeps  past  his  new-made  grave !  Never 
a  Trojan  who  carried  hopes  so  high,  nor  ever  the  land 
of  Romulus  so  gloried  in  a  son." 

(Octavia  is  listening.) 

"  Ah,  piety !  alas  for  the  ancient  faith  !  alas  for  the 
right  hand. so  stanch  in  battle !  None,  none  could  meet 
him,  whether  afoot  or  with  reeking  charger  he  pressed 
the  foe.  Ah,  unhappy  youth !  If  by  any  means  thou 
canst  break  the  harsh  decrees  of  Fate,  thou  wilt  be  — 
Marcellus ! " 

It  is  Octavia's  lost  boy ;  and  she  is  carried  out  faint- 
ing. 

But  Virgil  receives  a  matter  of  ten  thousand  sesterces 


58  WET  DAYS. 

a  line,  —  which,  allowing  for  difference  in  exchange  and 
value  of  gold,  may  (or  may  not)  have  been  a  matter  of 
ten  thousand  dollars.  With  this  bouncing  bag  of  ses- 
terces, Virgil  shall  go  upon  the  shelf  for  to-day. 

Tibullus  and  Horace. 

nniBULLUS  was  the  son  of  a  Roman  gentleman  who 
-'-  had  been  proscribed  in  the  fierce  civil  wars  of  the 
Republic,  and  who-probably  lost  his  head,  while  his  es- 
tates were  ravaged  by  pillaging  soldiers.  Such  a  record 
gave  the  poet  a  wholesome  horror  of  war,  which  he 
emphasizes  with  a  vengeance  up  and  down  throughout 
his  elegies.  Yet  he  had  his  own  experience  of  battles, 
—  at  Philippi  and  in  Aquitania ;  but  he  loved  better  a 
quiet  country-home  which  he  possessed  on  the  edge  of 
the  Campagna,  midway  between  the  heights  of  Tibuv 
and  of  Tusculum.  Horace,  I  dare  say,  made  him  pass 
ing  visits  there,  on  his  way  to  the  "  frigldum  Prceneste  " : 
it  lay  upon  the  direct  road  thither  from  Rome,  and  I 
suspect  that  they  two  made  many  a  jolly  night  of  it 
together.  Certain  it  is  that  Tibullus  was  not  inveter- 
ate in  his  prejudices  against  a  social  glass.  I  quote  a 
little  testimony  thereto  from  the  opening  elegy  of  his 
second  book  :  — 

••  Xow  quaff  Falernian,  let  my  Chian  wine, 
Poured  from  the  cask,  in  massy  goblets  shine  ! 


T1BULLUS  AND  HORACE.  59 

Drink  deep,  my  friends,  all,  all,  be  madly  gay ; 
'T  were  sacrilegious  not  to  reel  to-day." 

The  poet  loved  the  country  only  less  than  his  Delia 
and  Nemesis.  And  when  the  latter  gives  him  the  slip 
in  Rome,  and  retires  to  her  farm-villa,  he  vows  that  he 
will  follow  her,  (III.  Book  2,)  and  if  necessary,  disguise 
himself  as  one  of  her  henchmen  of  the  fields. 

"  Cu^id  joys  to  learn  the  ploughman's  phrase, 
And,  clad  a  peasant,  o'er  the  fallows  strays. 
Oh  how  the  weighty  prong  I  '11  busy  wield, 
Should  the  fair  wander  to  the  labored  field ! 
A  farmer  then  the  crooked  ploughshare  hold, 
Whilst  the  dull  ox  throws  up  the  unctuous  mould : 
I  'd  not  complain  though  Phoebus  burnt  the  lands, 
And  painful  blisters  swelled  my  tender  hands." 

Over  and  over  he  weaves  into  his  elegies  some  tender 
rural  scene  which  shows  not  only  his  own  taste,  but 
what  beauties  were  relished  by  his  admirers  —  of  whom 
he  counted  so  many  —  in  Rome. 

I  must  name  Horace  for  the  reason  of  his  "  Procul 
beatus"  etc..  if  I  had  no  other ;  but  the  tmth  is,  that 
though  he  rarely  wrote  intentionally  of  country-matters, 
yet  there  was  in  him  that  fulness  of  rural  taste  which 
bubbled  over  —  in  grape-clusters,  in  images  of  rivers, 
in  snowy  Soracte,  in  shade  of  plane-trees ;  nay,  he 
could  not  so  much  as  touch  an  amphora  but  the  purple 
juices  of  the  hill-side  stained  his  verse  as  they  stained 
his  lip.  See,  too,  what  a  charming  rural  spirit  there  is 


60  WET  DAYS 

in  his  ode  to  Septimius,  (VI.  2)  ;  and  the  opening  to 
Torquatus  *  (VII.  4)  is  the  limning  of  one  who  has 
followed  the  changes  of  the  bursting  spring  with  his 
whole  heart  in  his  eyes :  — 

"  The  snow  is  gone,  the  grass  is  seen, 
The  woods  wear  waving  robes  of  green ; 
'T  is  spring  again,  —  she  wakes,  she  wakes, 
The  icy  fetters  all  she  breaks ; 
And  every  brooklet,  wanton,  free, 
Goes  singing  sweetly  down  the  lea." 

Pliny's   Country-Places. 

my  last  wet  day  I  spoke  of  the  elder  Pliny,  and 
now  the  younger  Pliny  shall  tell  us  something  of 
one  or  two  of  his  country-places.     Pliny  was  a  govern- 

*  "Diffugere  nireg,  redeunt  jam  gramina  campis,"  — 

every  school-boy  knows  it:  but  what  every  school-boy  does  not  know, 
and  but  few  of  the  masters,  is  this  charming,  jingling  rendering  of  it 
into  the  Venetian  dialect:  — 

"  La  nere  xe  andida, 
Sn  i  prii  torna  i  fiori 
De  cento  colori, 
K  a  dosso  de  i  ilbori 
La  fogia  k  tornada 
A  ferli  vestir. 

"  Che  gusto  e  dileto 
Che  iU  qurla  t6ra 
CambiAda  de  ciera, 
£  i  ti  inn  i  che  placid! 
Sbassii  ncl  so'  Icto 
Va  zdzo  in  te  '1  mar !  " 

This,  with  other  odes,  is  prettily  turned  by  Sig.  Pietro  Bussolino, 
and  given  as  an  appendix  to  the  Serie  dtgli  Scritti  in  DialeUo  Vene- 
riano,  by  Bart.  Gamba. 


FLINTS   COUNTRY-PLACES.  61 

ment-official,  and  was  rich  :  whether  these  facts  had  any 
bearing  on  each  other  I  know  no  more  than  I  should 
know  if  he  had  Irred  in  our  times. 

I  know  that  he  had  a  charming  place  down  by  the 
sea,  near  to  Ostium.  Two  roads  led  thither  :  "  both  of 
them,"  he  says,  "  in  some  parts  sandy,  which  makes  it 
heavy  and  tedious,  if  you  travel  in  a  coach ;  but  easy 
enough  for  those  who  ride.  My  villa  "  (he  is  writing  to 
his  friend  Gallus,  Lib.  II.  Epist.  20)  "  is  large  enough 
for  all  convenience,  and  not  expensive." 

He  describes  the  portico  as  affording  a  capital  retreat 
in  bad  weather,  not  only  for  the  reason  that  it  is  pro- 
tected by  windows,  but  because  there  is  an  extraordinary 
projection  of  the  roof.  "  From  the  middle  of  this  por- 
tico you  pass  into  a  charming  inner  court,  and  thence 
into  a  large  hall  which  extends  towards  the  sea,  —  so 
near,  indeed,  that  under  a  west  wind  the  waves  ripple 
on  the  steps.  On  the  left  of  this  hall  is  a  large  loung- 
ing-room  (cubiculum),  and  a  lesser  one  beyond,  with 
windows  to  the  east  and  west.  The  angle  which  this 
lounging-room  forms  with  the  hall  makes  a  pleasant  lee, 
and  a  loitering-place  for  my  family  in  the  winter.  Near 
this  again  is  a  crescent-shaped  apartment,  with  windows 
which  receive  the  sun  all  day,  where  I  keep  my  favorite 
authors.  From  this,  one  passes  to  a  bedchamber  by  a 
raised  passage,  under  which  is  a  stove  that  commu- 
nicates an  agreeable  warmth  to  the  whole  apartment. 


62  WET  DAYS.  . 

The  other  rooms  in  this  portion  of  the  villa  are  for 
the  freedmen  and  slaves ;  but  still  are  sufficiently  well 
ordered  (tarn  mundis)  for  my  guests." 

And  he  goes  on  to  describe  the  bath-rooms,  the  cool- 
ing-rooms, the  sweating-rooms,  the  tennis-court,  "  which 
lies  open  to  the  warmth  of  the  afternoon  sun."  Adjoin- 
ing this  is  a  tower,  with  two  apartments  below  and  two 
above,  —  besides  a  supper-room,  which  commands  a 
wide  lookout  along  the  sea,  and  over  the  villas  that  stud 
the  shores.  At  the  opposite  end  of  the  tennis-court  is 
another  tower,  with  its  apartments  opening  upon  a 
museum,  —  and  below  this  the  great  dining-hall,  whose 
windows  look  upon  gardens,  where  are  box-tree  hedges, 
and  rosemary,  and  bowers  of  vines.  Figs  and  mulber- 
ries grow  profusely  in  the  garden ;  and  walking  under 
them,  one  approaches  still  another  banqueting-hall,  re- 
mote from  the  sea,  and  adjoining  the  kitchen-garden. 
Thence  a  grand  portico  (cryptoporticus)  extends  with  a 
range  of  windows  on  either  side,  and  before  the  portico 
is  a  terrace  perfumed  with  violets.  His  favorite  apart- 
ment, however*,  is  a  detached  building,  which  he  has 
himself  erected  in  a  retired  part  of  the  grounds.  It 
has  a  warm  winter-room,  looking  one  way  on  the  ter- 
race, and  another  on  the  ocean ;  through  its  folding- 
doors  may  be  seen  an  inner  chamber,  and  within  this 
again  a  sanctum,  whose  windows  command  three  views 
totally  separate  and  distinct,  —  the  sea,  the  woods,  or 


FLINTS  COUNTRY-PLACES.  03 

the  villas  along  the  shore.  "  Tell  me,"  he  says,  "  if  all 
this  is  not  very  charming,  and  if  I  shall  not  have  the 
honor  of  your  company,  to  enjoy  it  with  me  ?  " 

If  Pliny  regarded  the  seat  at  Ostium  as  only  a  con- 
venient and  inexpensive  place,  we  may  form  some  notion 
of  his  Tuscan  property,  which,  as  he  says  in  his  letter 
to  his  friend  Apollinaris,  (Lib.  V.  Epist.  6,)  he  prefers 
to  all  his  others,  whether  of  Tivoli,  Tusculum,  or  Pales- 
trina.  There,  at  a  distance  of  a  hundred  and  fifty  miles 
from  Rome,  in  the  midst  of  the  richest  corn-bearing  and 
olive-bearing  regions  of  Tuscany,  he  can  enjoy  country 
quietude.  There  is  no  need  to  be  slipping  on  his  toga ; 
ceremony  is  left  behind.  The  air  is  healthful ;  the  scene 
is  quiet.  "  Studiis  animum,  venatu  corpus  exerceo." 

"  If  you  were  to  come  here  and  see  the  numbers  of 
old  men  who  have  lived  to  be  grandfathers,  and  great- 
grandfathers, and  hear  the  stories  they  can  entertain  you 
with  of  their  ancestors,  you  would  fancy  yourself  born 
in  some  former  age.  The  disposition  of  the  country 
is  the  most  beautiful  that  can  be  imagined :  figure  to 
yourself  an  immense  amphitheatre,  but  such  as  only  the 
hand  of  Nature  could  form.  Before  you  lies  a  vast 
extended  plain,  bounded  by  a  range  of  mountains 
whose  summits  are  crowned  with  lofty  and  venerable 
woods,  which  supply  variety  of  game ;  from  hence,  as 
the  mountains  decline,  they  are  adorned  with  under- 
wood. Intermixed  with  these  ?re  little  hills  of  so 


til  WET  DAYS. 

strong  and  fat  a  soil  that  it  would  be  difficult  to  find  a 
single  stone  upon  them :  their  fertility  is  nothing  infe- 
rior to  that  of  the  lowest  grounds ;  and  though  their 
harvest,  indeed,  is  something  later,  their  crops  are  as 
well  ripened.  At  the  foot  of  these  hills  the  eye  is 
presented,  wherever  it  turns,  with  one  unbroken  view  of 
numberless  vineyards,  which  are  terminated  by  a  bor- 
der, as  it  were,  of  shrubs.  From  thence  you  have  a 
prospect  of  adjoining  fields  and  meadows  below.  The 
soil  of  the  former  is  so  extremely  stiff,  and  upon  the 
first  ploughing  it  rises  in  such  vast  clods,  that  it  is  neces- 
sary to  go  over  it  nine  several  times  with  the  largest 
oxen  and  the  strongest  ploughs,  before  they  can  be  thor- 
oughly broken  ;  whilst  the  enamelled  meadows  produce 
trefoil,  and  other  kinds  of  herbage  as  fine  and  tender 
as  if  it  were  but  just  sprung  up,  being  continually 
refreshed  by  never-failing  rills." 

I  will  not  follow  him  through  the  particularity  of  the 
description  which  he  gives  to  his  friend  Apollinaris. 
There  are  the  wide-reaching  views  of  fruitful  valleys 
and  of  empurpled  hill-sides  ;  there  are  the  fresh  winds 
sweeping  from  the  distant  Apennines ;  there  is  the 
gestatio  with  its  clipped  boxes,  the  embowered  walks, 
the  colonnades,  the  marble  banquet-rooms,  the  baths, 
the  Carystian  columns,  the  soft,  embracing  air,  and  the 
violet  sky.  I  leave  Pliny  seated  upon  a  bench  in  a 
marble  alcove  of  his  Tuscan  garden.  From  this  bench, 


FLINTS   COUNTRY-PLACES.  85 

the  water,  gushing  through  several  little  pipes,  as  if  it 
were  pressed  out  by  the  weight  of  the  persons  reposing 
upon  it,  falls  into  a  stone  cistern  underneath,  whence 
it  is  received  into  a  polished  marble  basin,  so  artfully 
contrived  that  it  is  always  full,  without  ever  overflowing. 
"  When  I  sup  here,"  he  writes,  "  this  basin  serves  for 
a  table,  —  the  larger  dishes  being  placed  round  the 
margin,  while  the  smaller  ones  swim  about  in  the  form 
of  little  vessels  and  water-fowl."  Such  alfresco  suppers 
the  country-gentlemen  of  Italy  ate  in  the  first  century 
of  our  era !  Pliny  was  always  a  friend  of  the  ruling 
powers,  and  knew  how  to  praise  them. 

One  more  illustration  of  his  country-estates  I  venture 
to  give,  on  the  following  page,  in  a  drawing  from  Castell. 
It  will  be  observed  that  there  are  indications  of  an 
approach,  in  some  portions  of  the  grounds,  to  what  is 
called  the  natural  style,  which  is  currently  supposed  to 
be  a  modern  suggestion.  There  are  reasons,  however, 
to  believe  the  contrary ;  not  the  least  of  which  may  be 
found  in  a  certain  passage  in  the  "  Annals  of  Tacitus,"  * 
cited  by  Horace  Walpole,  (Vol.  II.  p.  523,)  which  shows 
as  great  irreverence  for  the  stately  formalities  of  gar- 
dening as  either  Eepton  or  Price  could  have  desired. 

*  "  Ceterum  Nero  usus  est  patriae  minis,  extruxitque  domum,  in  qua 
baud  perinde  gemmae  et  aurum  miraculo  essent,  solita  pridem  et  luxu 
vulgata;  quam  arva,  et  stagna,  et,  in  modum  solitwlinum,  hinc  silcat, 
incle  aperta  spatia,  et  prospectus,  magistris  et  machinatoribus  ?(•%.:• 
et  celere  quibus  ingenium  et  audacia  erat  etiam  qnse  natura  denega- 
visset  per  artem  tentare."  —  Lib.  XV. 
5 


66 


WET  DAYS. 


PLINY'S  VILLA.* 


*  Explanation  of  references :  — 

1.  Villa. 

2.  Gestatio. 

3.  Walk  around  terrace. 


4,  4.  Slopes  with  forms  of  beasts 

in  boxwood. 

5,  5.  Terraces. 


PALLADIUS.  67 

Palladius. 

T)ALLADIUS  wrote  somewhere  about  the  middle 
of  the  fourth  century.  A  large  part  of  his  work 
is  arranged  in  the  form  of  a  calendar  for  the  months, 
and  it  closes  with  a  poem  which  is  as  inferior  to  the 
poems  of  the  time  of  Augustus  as  the  later  emperors 
were  inferior  to  the  Caesars.*  There  is  in  his  book  no 
notable  advance  upon  the  teachings  of  Columella,  whom 
he  frequently  quotes,  —  as  well  as  certain  Greek  author- 
ities of  the  Lower  Empire.  I  find  in  his  treatise  a 
somewhat  fuller  list  of  vegetables,  fruits,  and  field-crops 

6.  Hippodrome.  10.  Underwood  on  declivities  of 

7.  Plane-trees  around  hippodrome.  hill. 

8.  Cypress  -  trees  forming  wall  of     17.  Vineyards. 

green.  18.  Grain-fields. 

i  9.  Garden-alcoves.  19.  River. 

10.  Wall  of  box.  20.  Temple  of  Ceres. 

11.  Little  meadow  of  garden.  21.  Farmery. 

12, 12.  Circles  within  which  were  22.  Vivarium  or  Park, 

landscapes  in  miniature,  with  23.  Kitchen-garden, 

mountains,  brooks,  trees,  etc.  24.  Orchard. 

13.  Walks  diverging,  shrouded  in  25.  Apiary-. 

moss.  20.  Snailery. 

14.  Meadow.  27.  Hutch  for  dormice. 

15.  Hills      covered     with      heavy    28.  Osiers. 

wood.  29.  Aqueduct. 

*  I  drop  in  a  note  a  little  confirmatory  stanza  De  Prunis: — 

"  Pruna  suis  addunt  felicia  germina  membris, 

Donaque  cognato  corpora  laeta  ferunt. 

Exarmat  foetus,  sed  brachia  roboris  armat 

Castaneae  prunus  jussa  tenere  larem." 

The  botany  is  as  bad  as  the  poetry. 


68  WET  DAYS. 

than  belongs  to  the  earlier  writers.  I  find  more  variety 
of  treatment.  I  see  a  waning  faith  in  the  superstitions 
of  the  past :  Bacchus  and  the  Lares  are  less  jubilant 
than  they  were ;  but  the  Christian  civilization  has  not 
yet  vivified  the  art  of  culture.  The  magnificent  gar- 
dens of  Nero  and  the  horticultural  experiences  of  the 
great  Adrian  at  Tivoli  have  left  no  traces  in  the 
method  or  inspiration  of  Palladius. 

Professor  Daubeny. 

T  WILL  not  pass  wholly  from  the  classic  period 
*-  without  allusion  to  the  recent  book  of  Professof 
Daubeny  on  Roman  husbandry.  It  is  charming,  and 
yet  disappointing,  —  not  for  failure,  on  his  part,  to  trace 
the  traditions  to  their  sources,  not  for  lack  of  learning 
or  skill,  but  for  lack  of  that  afflatus  which  should  pour 
over  and  fill  both  subject  and  talker,  where  the  talker 
is  lover  as  well  as  master. 

Daubeny's  husbandry  lacks  the  odor  of  fresh-turned 
ground,  —  lacks  the  imprint  of  loving  familiarity.  He 
is  clearly  no  farmer :  every  man  who  has  put  his  hand 
to  the  plough  (aratori  crede)  sees  it.  Your  blood  does 
not  tingle  at  his  story  of  Boreas,  nor  a  dreamy  languoi 
creep  over  you  when  he  talks  of  sunny  south-winds. 

Had  he  written  exclusively  of  bees,  or  trees,  or 
flowers,  there  would  have  been  a  charming  murmur, 


THE   DARK  AGE.  69 

like  the  susurrus  of  the  poets,  —  and  a  fragrance  as 
of  crushed  heaps  of  lilies  and  jonquils.  But  Daubeny 
approaches  fanning  as  a  good  surgeon  approaches  a 
cadaver.  lie  disarticulates  the  joints  superbly ;  but 
there  is  no  tremulous  intensity.  The  bystanders  do 
not  feel  the  thrill  with  which  they  see  a  man  bare  his 
arm  for  a  capital  operation  upon  a  live  and  palpitating 
body. 

The  Dark  Age. 

TT^ROM  the  time  of  Palladius  to  the  time  of  Pietro 
-*-  Crescenzi  is  a  period  of  a  thousand  years,  a  period 
as  dreary  and  impenetrable  as  the  snow-cloud  through 
which  I  see  faintly  a  few  spires  staggering :  so  along 
the  pages  of  Muratori's  interminable  annals  gaunt  fig- 
ures come  and  go  ;  but  they  are  not  the  figures  of  far- 
mers. 

Goths,  wars,  famines,  and  plague  succeed  each  other 
in  ghastly  procession.  Boiithius  lifts,  indeed,  a  little 
rural  plaint  from  out  of  the  gloom,  — 

"  Felix  minium  prior  aetas, 
Contenta  fidelibus  arvis,"  *  — 

but  the  dungeon  closes  over  him  ;  and  there  are  out- 
standing orders  of  Charlemagne  which  look  as  if  he 
had  an  eye  to  the  crops  of  Italy,  and  to  a  good  vegetu- 

*De  ContoL  Phil.,  Lib.  II. 


70  WET  DAYS. 

ble  stew  with  his  Transalpine  dinners,  —  but  for  the 
most  part  the  land  is  waste.  Dreary  and  tangled 
marsh-lands,  with  fevers  brooding  over  them,  are  around 
Ferrara  and  Mantua,  and  along  all  the  upper  valley  of 
the  Arno.  Starveling  peasants  are  preyed  upon  by 
priests  and  seigneurs.  No  mail,  powerful  or  humble, 
could  be  sure  of  reaping  what  he  sowed.  I  see  some 
such  monster  as  Eccelino  reaping  a  harvest  of  blood. 
I  see  Lombards  pouring  down  from  the  mountain- 
gates  with  falcons  on  their  thumbs,  ready  to  pounce 
upon  the  purple  columbce  that  trace  back  their  lineage 
to  the  doves  Virgil  may  have  fed  in  the  streets  of  Man- 
tua. I  see  torrents  of  people,  the  third  of  them  women, 
driven  mad  by  some  fanatical  outcry,  sweeping  over 
the  whole  breadth  of  Italy,  and  consuming  all  green 
things  as  a  fire  consumes  stubble.  Think  of  what  the 
fine  villa  of  Pliny  would  have  been,  with  its  boxwood 
bowers  and  floating  dishes,  under  the  press  of  such 
crusaders!  It  was  a  precarious  time  for  agricultural 
investments :  I  know  nothing  that  could  match  it,  un- 
less it  may  have  been  the  later  summers'  harvests  in 
the  valley  of  the  Shenandoah. 

Upon  a  parchment  (strumento)  of  Ferrara,  bearing 
date  A.  r>.  1113,  (Annals  of  Muratori,)  I  find  a  memo- 
randum of  contract  which  looks  like  reviving  civiliza- 
tion. "  Terram  autem  illam  quam  roncabo,  frui  debe.o 
per  annos  tres  ;  posted  reddam  serraticum."  The  Latin 


GEOPONICA    GEOPONICORU.M.  71 

is  stiff,  but  the  sense  is   sound.     "If  I  grub  up  wild 
land,  I  shall  hold  it  three  years  for  pay." 

I  also  find,  in  the  same  invaluable  storehouse  of  medi- 
aeval history,  numerous  memoranda  of  agreements,  in 
virtue  of  which  the  tenant  was  to  deliver  to  the  land- 
lord, or  other  feudal  master,  a  third  or  a  fourth  part  of 
all  the  grain  raised,  duly  threshed,  besides  a  third  por- 
tion of  the  wine,  and,  in  some  instances,  a  special  return 
for  the  cottage,  of  a  young  chicken,  five  sheep,  three 
days'  work  with  oxen,  and  as  many  of  personal  labor 
(cum  manibus).  From  the  exceeding  moderation  of 
this  apportionment  of  shares,  at  a  period  v/hen  the 
working-farmer  or  rent-payer  (livellario)  was  reckoned 
little  better  than  a  brute,  we  may  reasonably  infer  the 
poverty  of  the  harvests,  and  the  difficulties  of  culti- 
vation. 

G-eoponica  Greoponicorum. 

SHALL  make  no  apology  for  introducing  next  to 
L  the  reader  the  "  Geoponica  Geoponicorum,"  —  a 
somewhat  extraordinary  collection  of  agricultural  opin- 
ions, usually  attributed,  in  a  loose  way,  to  the  Emperor 
Constantine  Porphyrogenitus,  who  held  the  Byzantine 
throne  about  the  middle  of  the  tenth  century.  It  was 
undoubtedly  under  the  order  of  Constantine  that  the 
collection  took  its  present  shape  ;  but  whether  a  body 
of  manuscripts  under  the  same  name  had  not  previ- 


72  WET  DAYS. 

ously  existed,  and,  if  so,  to  whom  is  to  be  credited  the 
authorship,  are  questions  which  have  been  discussed 
through  a  wilderness  of  Greek  and  Roman  type,  by 
the  various  editors. 

The  edition  before  me  (that  of  Niclas,  Leipsic)  gives 
no  less  than  a  hundred  pages  of  prolegomena,  prefaces, 
introductory  observations,  with  notes  to  each  and  all, 
interlacing  the  pages  into  a  motley  of  patchwork  ;  the 
whole  preceded  by  two,  and  followed  by  five  stately 
dedications.  The  weight  of  authority  points  to  Cassia- 
nus  Bassus,  a  Bithynian,  as  the  real  compiler,  —  not- 
withstanding his  name  is  attached  to  particular  chap- 
ters of  the  book,  and  notwithstanding  he  lived  as  early 
as  the  fifth  century.  Other  critics  attribute  the  collec- 
tion to  Dionysius  Uticensis,  who  is  cited  by  both  Varro 
and  Columella.  The  question  is  unsettled,  and  is  not 
worth  the  settling.* 

My  own  opinion  —  in  which,  however,  Niclas  and 
Needham  do  not  share  —  is,  that  the  Emperor  Por- 
phyrogenitus,  in  addition  to  his  historical  and  judicial 
labors,t  wishing  to  mass  together  the  best  agricultural 

*  The  work  was  translated  by  the  Rev.  T.  Owen  of  Queen's  College, 
Oxford,  and  published  in  1805.  I  have  not,  however,  been  able  to  see 
a  copy  of  this  translation.  From  a  contemporary  notice  in  the 
Monthly  Review,  (Oct.  1806,)  I  am  led  to  believe  that  it  met  with 
very  little  favor.  Arthur  Young  also  speaks  of  the  work  with  ill- 
founded  contempt,  in  his  introduction  to  A  Course  of  Experiments, 
etc. 

t  See  Gibbon,  —  opening  of  Chapter  LIII. 


GEOPONICA    GEOPONICORUU.  73 

"»  opinions  of  the  day,  expressed  that  wish  to  some  trusted 
Byzantine  official  (we  may  say  his  Commissioner  of 
Patents).  Whereupon  the  Byzantine  official  (commis- 
sioner) goes  to  some  hungry  agricultural  friend,  of 
the  Chersonesus,  and  lays  before  him  the  plan,  with 
promise  of  a  round  Byzantine  stipend.  The  agricul- 
tural friend  goes  lovingly  to  the  work,  and  discovers 
some  old  compilation  of  Bassus  or  of  Dionysius,  into 
which  he  whips  a  few  modern  phrases,  attributes  a  feu- 
chapters  to  the  virtual  compiler  of  the  whole,  makes 
one  or  two  adroit  allusions  to  local  scenes,  and  carries 
the  result  to  the  Byzantine  official  (commissioner). 
The  official  (commissioner)  has  confidence  in  the  opin- 
ions and  virtues  of  his  agricultural  friend,  and  indorses 
the  book,  paying  over  the  stipend,  which  it  is  found 
necessary  to  double,  by  reason  of  the  unexpected  cost 
of  execution.  The  official  (commissioner)  presents  the 
report  to  the  Emperor,  who  receives  it  gratefully,  —  at 
the  same  time  approving  the  bill  of  costs,  which  has 
grown  into  a  quadruple  of  the  original  estimates. 

This  hypothesis  will  explain  the  paragraphs  which 
so  puzzle  Niclas  and  Needham ;  it  explains  the  evi- 
dent interpolations,  and  the  local  allusions.  The  only 
extravagance  in  the  hypothesis  is  its  assumption  that 
the  officials  of  Byzantium  were  as  rapacious  as  our 
own. 

Thus  far,  I  have  imagined  a  certain  analogy  betwe-.-n 


74  WET  DAYS. 

the  work  in  view  and  the  "  Patent  Office  Agricultural 
Reports."  *  The  analogy  stops  here  :  the  "  Geoponica  " 
is  a  good  book.  It  is  in  no  sense  to  be  regarded  as  a 
work  of  the  tenth  century,  or  as  one  strictly  Byzantine  : 
nearly  half  the  authors  named  are  of  Western  origin, 
and  I  find  none  dating  later  than  the  fifth  century,  — 
while  many,  as  Apuleius,  Fiorentinus,  Africanus,  and 
the  poor  brothers  Quintilii,  who  died  under  the  stab  of 
Commodus,  belong  to  a  period  preceding  that  of  Palla- 
dius.  Aratus  and  Democritus  (of  Abdera)  again,  who 
are  cited,  are  veterans  of  the  old  Greek  school,  who 
might  have  contributed  as  well  to  the  agriculture  of 
Thrace  or  Macedonia  in  the  days  of  Philip  as  in  the 
days  of  the  Porphyrogenitus. 

The  first  book,  of  meteorologic  phenomena,  is  nearly 
identical  in  its  teachings  with  those  of  Aratus,  Varro, 
and  Virgil.  The  subject  of  field-culture  is  opened  with 
the  standard  maxim,  repeated  by  all  the  old  writers, 
that  the  master's  eye  is  invaluable,  f  The  doctrine  of 

*  I  am  glad  to  say  that  the  Report  of  the  Department  of  Agriculture 
for  1862  shows  a  great  gain  —  in  arrangement,  in  width  of  discussion, 
and  in  practical  value.  Made  virtute,  Dom.  Newton! 

t  As  a  curious  illustration  of  the  rhetoric  of  the  different  agronomes, 
I  give  the  various  wordings  of  this  universal  maxim. 

The  "  Geoponica"  has,  —  "  IIoX/lw  rbv  uypbv  ufieivu  rcoisl  faaxorov 
owtX*K  Topovaia."  Lib.  II.  cap.  i. 

Col umella  says,  —  "  Ne  ista  quidem  praesidia  tantum  pollent,  quan- 
tum vel  una  prsesentia  domini."  I.  i.  18. 

Cato  says,  —  "  Frous  occipitio  prior  est."     Cap.  iv. 

Palladius  puts  it,  —  "  Pr.usentia  domini  provectus  est  flgri."     I.  vi. 


GEOPONICA   GEOPONICORUM.  75 

rotation,  or  frequent  change  of  crops,  is  laid  down  with 
unmistakable  precision.  A  steep  for  seed  (hellebore) 
is  recommended,  to  guard  against  the  depredations  of 
birds  or  mice. 

In  the  second  book,  in  certain  chapters  credited  to 
Fiorentinus,  I  find,  among  other  valuable  manures 
mentioned,  sea-weed  and  tide-drift,  (To.  IK  r^s  GaXda-- 
tnjs  Se  e*c/3paororo/>.eva  fipvuSr],)  which  I  do  not  recall  in 
any  other  of  the  old  writers.  He  also  recommends  the 
refuse  of  leather-dressers,  and  a  mode  of  promoting 
putrefaction  in  the  compost-heap,  which  would  almost 
seem  to  be  stolen  from  "  Bommer's  Method."  He  fur- 
ther urges  the  diversion  of  turbid  rills,  after  rains,  over 
grass  lands,  and  altogether  makes  a  better  compend  of 
this  branch  of  the  subject  than  can  be  found  in  the 
Roman  writers  proper.  Grain  should  be  cut  before  it 
is  fully  ripe,  as  the  meal  is  the  sweeter.  What  corre- 
spondent of  our  agricultural  papers,  suggesting  this  as 
a  novelty,  could  believe  that  it  stood  in  Greek  type  as 
early  as  ever  Greek  types  were  set  ?  A  farm  foreman 
should  be  apt  to  rise  early,  should  win  the  respect  of 
his  men,  should  fear  to  tell  an  untruth,  regard  religious 
observances,  and  not  drink  too  hard. 

The  elder  Pliny  writes,  —  "  Majores  fertilissimum  in  agro  oculum 
domini  esse  dixerunt."  Hist.  Nat.,  Lib.  XVIII.  cap.  ii. 

And  Crescenzi,  more  than  a  thousand  years  later,  rounds  it  into  Ital- 
ian thus:  —  "La  presentia  del  signore  utilita  e  del  campo;  e  chi  aban- 
dona  lavigna  sam  abandonato  da  lei  da  Invoratori."  Lib.  II.  cap.  ix. 


76  WET  DAYS. 

Three  or  four  books  are  devoted  to  a  very  full  dis- 
cussion of  the  vine,  and  of  wines,  —  not  differing 
materially,  however,  from  the  Columellan  advice.  In 
discussing  the  moral  aspects  of  the  matter,  this  Geo- 
ponic  author  enumerates  other  things  which  will  intoxi- 
cate as  well  as  wine,  —  even  some  waters ;  also  the  wine 
made  from  barley  and  wheat,  which  barbarians  drink. 
Old  men,  he  says,  are  easily  made  drunk ;  women  not 
easily,  by  reason  of  temperament ;  but  by  drinking 
enough  they  may  come  to  it. 

Where  the  discourse  turns  upon  pears,  (Lib.  X.  cap. 
xxiii.,)  it  is  urged,  that,  if  you  wish  specially  good  fruit, 
you  should  bore  a  hole  through  the  trunk  at  the  ground, 
and  drive  in  a  plug  of  either  oak  or  beech,  and  draw 
the  earth  over  it.  If  it  does  not  heal  well,  wash  for  a 
fortnight  with  the  lees  of  old  wine :  in  any  event, 
the  wine-lees  will  help  the  flavor  of  the  fruit.  Almost 
identical  directions  are  to  be  found  in  Palladius,  (Tit. 
XXV.,)  but  the  above  is  credited  to  Diophanes,  who 
lived  in  Asia  Minor  a  full  century  before  Chrisfc. 

Book  XL  opens  with  flowers  and  evergreens,  intro- 
duced (by  a  Latin  translation)  in  a  mellifluous  roll  of 
genitives  :  —  " plantationem  rosarum,  et  liliorum,  et  vio- 
larum,  et  reliquorum  jlorum  odoratorum"  Thereafter 
is  given  the  pretty  tradition,  that  red  roses  came  of  nec- 
tar spilled  from  heaven.  Love,  who  bore  the  celestial 
vintage,  tripped  a  wing,  and  overset  the  vase ;  and  tbe 


GEOPONICA    GEOPONICORUM.  11 

nectar,  spilling  on  the  valleys  of  the  earth,  bubbled  up 
in  roses.  Next  we  have  this  kindred  story  of  the  lilies. 
Jupiter  wished  to  make  his  boy  Hercules  (born  of  a 
mortal)  one  of  the  gods :  so  he  snatches  him  from  the 
bosom  of  his  earthly  mother,  Alcmena,  and  bears  him 
to  the  bosom  of  the  godlike  Juno.  The  milk  is  spilled 
from  the  full-mouthed  boy,  as  he  traverses  the  sky, 
(making  the  Milky  Way,)  and  what  drops  below  stars 
and  clouds,  and  touches  earth,  stains  the  ground  with  — 
lilies. 

In  the  chapter  upon  pot-herbs  are  some  of  those 
allusions  to  the  climate  of  Constantinople  which  may 
have  served  to  accredit  the  work  in  the  Byzantine 
court.  I  find  no  extraordinary  methods  of  kitchen- 
garden  culture,  —  unless  I  except  the  treatment  of 
muskmelon-seeds  to  a  steep  of  milk  and  honey,  in 
order  to  improve  the  flavor  of  the  fruit.  (Cap.  xx.) 
The  remaining  chapters  relate  to  ordinary  domestic  ani- 
mals, with  diversions  to  stags,  camels,  hare,  poisons, 
scorpions,  .and  serpents.  I  can  cheerfully  commend 
the  work  to  those  who  have  a  snowy  day  on  their 
hands,  good  eyesight,  and  a  love  for  the  subject. 


A 


Crescenzi. 

ND  now,  while  the  snow  lasts,  let  us  take  one  look 
at  Messer  Pietro  Crescenzi,  a  Bolognese  of  the 


78  WET  DAYS. 

fourteenth  century.  My  copy  of  him  is  a  little,  fat, 
unctuous,  parchment-bound  book  of  1534,  bought  upon 
a  street-stall  under  the  walls  of  the  University  of  Bo- 
logna. 

Through  whose  hands  may  it  not  have  passed  since 
its  printing !  Sometimes  I  seem  to  snuff  in  it  the  taint 
of  a  dirty-handed  friar,  who  loved  his  pot-herbs  better 
than  his  breviary,  and  plotted  his  yearly  garden  on 
some  shelf  of  the  hills  that  look  down  on  Castagnolo  : 
other  times  I  scent  only  the  mould  and  the  damp  of 
some  monastery  shelf,  that  guarded  it  quietly  and  clean- 
ly while  red-handed  war  raged  around  the  walls. 

Crescenzi  was  a  man  of  good  family  in  Bologna, 
being  nephew  of  Crescenzi  di  Crescenzo,  who  died  in 
1268,  an  ambassador  in  Venice.  Pietro  was  educated 
to  the  law,  and,  wearying  of  the  civil  commotions  in  his 
native  town,  accepted  judicial  positions  in  the  indepen- 
dent cities  of  Italy,  —  Pisa  and  Asti  among  others ; 
and  after  thirty  years  of  absence,  in  which,  as  he  says, 
he  had  read  many  authors,*  and  seen  many  sorts  of 
farming,  he  gives  his  book  to  the  world. 

Its  arrangement  is  very  similar  to  that  of  Palladius, 
to  which  he  makes  frequent  reference.  Indeed,  he  does 
something  more  and  worse  than  to  refer  to  him  :  he 
steals  from  him  by  the  page.  To  be  sure  he  had  some 

*  "  E  molti  libi:  d'  antichi  e  de'  novelli  savi  lessi  e  studiai,  e  diverse 
e  varie  operazioni  de'  coltivatori  delle  terre  vidi  e  conobbi." 


CRESCENZ1.  79 

nin3  hundred  years  of  margin,  since  Palladius  lived, 
in  the  course  of  which  the  stock  of  papyrus  had  been 
cut  off;  vellum  was  dear,  and  rag-paper  was  hard- 
ly yet  in  vogue.  It  is  not  probable,  therefore,  that 
those  for  whose  benefit  Crescenzi  wrote  would  detect 
his  plagiarisms.  Palladius  stole  from  the  Greeks  far 
and  near ;  and  in  repeating  the  theft  Crescenzi  only 
restored  to  the  Italians  what  was  theirs  by  inherit- 
ance. 

But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that  he  is  wholly  depend- 
ent upon  Palladius.  He  writes  upon  the  arrangement 
of  farmeries  like  one  who  had  built  them,  and  of  horses 
like  one  who  loved  them :  he  tells  us  of  their  good 
points  and  of  their  bad  points,  and  how  they  should 
be  tested.  He  is  more  sensitive  than  were  the  Roman 
writers  to  the  disadvantages  of  a  wet  soil,  and  advises 
how  it  may  be  treated.  He  gives  rules  for  mortar- 
making,  and  suggests  that  the  timber  for  house-building 
be  cut  in  November  or  December,  in  the  old  of  the 
moon.  Both  Palladius  and  himself  urge  the  use  of 
earthen  pipes  for  conducting  water,  and  give  a  cement 
( quick-lime  mixed  with  oil)  for  making  water-tight  their 
junction.* 

In  matters  of  physiology  he  shows  a  near  approach 

*  Lib.  I.  cap.  ix.  The  pipes  named  —  docdoni  di  terra  —  could  not 
have  differed  materially  from  our  draining- tile,  which  we  are  accus- 
tomed to  regard  as  a  modern  invention. 


80  WET  DAYS. 

to  modern  views :  he  insists  that  food  for  plants  must 
be  in  a  liquid  form.* 

He  quotes  Columella's  rule  for  twenty-four  loads  (car- 
rette)  of  manure  to  hill-lands  per  acre,  and  eighteen  to 
level  land ;  and  adds,  — "  Our  people  put  the  double 
of  this,"  —  "  /  nostri  mettano  piu  chel  doppio" 

But  the  book  of  our  friend  Crescenzi  is  interesting 
not  so  much  for  its  maxims  of  agronomic  wisdom  as  for 
its  association  with  one  of  the  most  eventful  periods 
of  Italian  history.  The  new  language  of  the  Penin- 
sula f  was  just  now  crystallizing  into  shape,  and  was 
presently  to  receive  the  stamp  of  currency  from  the 
hands  of  Dante  and  Boccaccio.  A  thriving  commerce 
through  the  ports  of  Venice  and  Amalfi  demanded  all 
the  products  of  the  hill-sides.  Milan,  then  having  a 
population  of  two  hundred  thousand,  had  turned  a  great 
river  into  the  fields,  which  to  this  day  irrigates  thousands 
of  acres  of  rice -lands.  Wheat  was  grown  in  profu- 
sion, at  that  time,  on  fields  which  are  now  desolated  by 
the  malaria,  or  by  indolence.  In  the  days  of  Crescenzi, 
gunpowder  was  burned  for  the  first  time  in  battle  ;  and 
for  the  first  time  crops  of  grain  were  paid  for  in  bills 
of  exchange.  All  the  Peninsula  was  vibrating  with  the 
throbs  of  a  new  and  more  splendid  life.  The  art  that 

*  "  II  proprio  cibo  delle  piante  sara  alcuno  humido  ben  mischiato." 
Cap.  xiii. 

rx'scenzi's  book  was  written  in  Latin,  but  was  very  shortly  aftei 
(perhaps  by  himself)  rendered  into  the  street-tongue  of  Italy. 


A  FLORENTINE  FARM.  81 

« 

had  cropped  out  of  the  fashionable  schools  of  Byzan- 
tium was  fast  putting  them  in  eclipse  ;  and  before  Cres- 
cenzi  died,  if  he  loved  art  on  canvas  as  he  loved  art 
in  gardens,  he  must  have  heard  admiringly  of  Cimabue, 
and  Giotto,  and  Orcagna. 

A  Florentine   Farm. 

TN  1360  a  certain  Paganino  Bonafede  composed  a 
-*-  poem  called  "  H  Tesoro  de'  Rustici  " ;  but  I  believe 
it  was  never  published ;  and  Tiraboschi  calls  it  rather 
dull,  —  "  poco  felice"  If  we  could  only  bar  publicity  to 
all  the  poco  felice  verses  ! 

In  the  middle  of  the  fifteenth  century  the  Florentine 
Poggio  *  says  some  good  things  in  a  rural  way ;  and  still 
later,  that  whimsical,  disagreeable  Politiano,  f  who  was  a 
pet  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici,  published  his  "  Rusticus." 
Roscoe  says,  with  his  usual  strained  hyperbole,  that  it 
is  inferior  in  kind  only  to  the  Georgics.  The  fact  is,  it 
compares  with  the  Georgics  as  the  vilest  of  the  Medici 
compare  with  the  grandest  of  the  Csesars. 

The  young  Michele  Verini,  of  the  same  period,  has 
given,  in  one  of  his  few  remaining  letters,  an  eloquent 
description  of  the  Cajano  farm  of  Lorenzo  de'  Medici. 
It  lay  between  Florence  and  Pistoia.  The  river  Om- 

*  Epistola  de  Laude  Ruris. 

\  See  Roscoe,  Life  of  Lorenzo  <fe'  Medici,  Chap.  VIII 
G 


82  WET  DAYS. 

brone  skirted  iis  fields.  It  was  so  successfully  irrigated 
that  three  crops  of  grain  grew  in  a  year.  Its  barns  had 
stone  floors,  walls  with  moat,  and  towers  like  a  castle. 
The  cows  he  kept  there  (for  ewes  were  now  superseded) 
were  equal  to  the  supply  of  the  entire  city  of  Florence. 
Hogs  were  fed  upon  the  whey  ;  and  peacocks  and  pheas- 
ants Innumerable  roamed  through  the  woods. 

Politiano  also  touches  upon  the  same  theme  in  stiff 
hexameters.  They  occur  in  his  poem  of  "  Sylva,"  which 
was  written  in  praise  of  Homer,  but  which  closes  with 
a  descriptive  dash  at  the  farm  of  the  great  Florentine. 
The  reader  shall  have  it,  as  Englished  by  Mr.  Ros- 
coe:  — 

"  Go  on,  Lorenzo,  thou,  the  Muses'  pride, 
Pierce  the  hard  rock  and  scoop  the  mountain's  side ; 
The  distant  streams  shall  hear  thy  potent  call, 
And  the  proud  arch  receive  them  as  they  fall, 
Thence  o'er  thy  fields  the  genial  waters  lead, 
That  with  luxuriant  verdure  crown  the  mead. 
There  rise  thy  mounds  th'  opposing  flood  that  ward ; 
There  thy  domains  thy  faithful  mastiffs  guard ; 
Tarentum  there  her  homed  cattle  sends, 
Whose  swelling  teats  the  milky  rill  distends; 
There  India's  breeds  of  various  colors  range, 
Pleased  with  the  novel  scene  and  pastures  strange, 
Whilst  nightly  closed  within  their  sheltered  stall 
For  the  due  treat  their  lowing  offspring  call. 
Meantime  the  milk  in  spacious  coppers  boils, 
With  arms  upstript  the  elder  rustic  toils, 
The  young  assist  the  curdled  mass  to  squeeze, 


A  FLORENTINE  FARM.  83 

And  place  in  cooling  shades  the  new-mado  cheese. 

Where  mulberry-groves  their  length  of  shadow  spread 

Secure  the  silk-worm  spins  his  lustrous  thread; 

And,  culled  from  every  flower  the  plunderer  meets, 

The  bee  regales  thee  with  her  rifled  sweets; 

There  birds  of  various  plume  and  various  note 

Flutter  their  captive  wings:  with  cackling  throat 

The  Paduan  fowl  betrays  her  future  breed, 

And  there  the  geese,  once  Rome's  preservers,  feed, 

And  ducks  amusive  sport  amidst  thy  floods, 

And  doves,  the  pride  of  Venus,  throng  thy  woods." 

While  I  write,  wandering  in  fancy  to  that  fair  plain 
where  Florence  sits  a  queen,  with  her  girdle  of  shining 
rivers,  and  her  garland  of  olive-bearing  hills,  —  the 
snow  is  passing.  The  spires  have  staggered  plainly  and 
stiffly  into  sight  Again  I  can  count  them,  one  by  one. 
I  have  brought  as  many  authors  to  the  front  as  there 
are  spires  staring  at  me  from  the  snow. 

Let  me  marshal  them  once  more:  —  Verini,  the 
young  Florentine  ;  Politiano,  who  cannot  live  in  peace 
with  the  wife  of  his  patron  ;  Crescenzi,  the  magistrate 
and  farmer  joined  ;  the  half-score  of  dead  men  who  lie 
between  the  covers  of  the  "  Geoponica  " ;  the  martyr 
Boethius,  who,  under  the  consolations  of  a  serene,  per- 
haps Christian  philosophy,  cannot  forget  the  charm  of 
the  fields ;  Palladius,  who  is  more  full  than  original ; 
Pliny  the  Consul,  and  the  friend  of  Tacitus ;  Tibullus, 
the  elegiac  lover;  Horace,  whose  very  laugh  is  biim- 


84  WET  DAYS. 

ming  with  the  buxom  cheer  of  the  country  ;  and  last,  — 
Virgil. 

I  hear  no  such  sweet  bugle-note  as  his  along  all  the 
line  !     Hark  I  — 

"  Claudite  jam  rivos,  pueri,  sat  prata  biberunt." 

Even  so  :   Claudite  jam  libros,  parvuli  !  —  Shut  up  the 
books,  my  little  ones  !     Enough  for  to-day. 


TRIED  DAY. 


A  Picture  of  Rain. 

"TTTILL  any  of  our  artists  ever  give  us,  on  canvas, 
*  *  a  good,  rattling,  saucy  shower  ?  There  is  room 
in  it  for  a  rare  handling  of  the  brush :  —  the  vague,  in- 
distinguishable line  of  lulls,  (as  I  see  them  to-day,)  — 
the  wild  scud  of  gray,  with  fine  gray  lines,  slanted  by 
the  wind,  and  trending  eagerly  downward,  —  the  swift, 
petulant  dash  into  the  little  pools  of  the  highway,  mak- 
ing fairy  bubbles  that  break  as  soon  as  they  form,  — 
the  land  smoking  with  excess  of  moisture,  —  and  the 
pelted  leaves  all  wincing  and  shining  and  adrip. 

I  know  no  painter  who  has  so  well  succeeded  in  put- 
ting a  wet  sky  into  his  pictures  as  Turner  ;  and  in  this 
I  judge  him  by  the  literal  chiaroscuro  of  engraving.  In 
proof  of  it,  I  take  down  from  my  shelf  his  "  Rivers  of 
France  " :  a  book  over  which  I  have  spent  a  great  many 
pleasant  hours,  and  idle  ones  too,  —  if  it  be  idle  to 
travel  leagues  at  the  turning  of  a  page,  and  to  see  hill- 
sides spotty  with  vineyards,  and  great  bridges  wallow- 


86  WET  DAYS. 

ing  through  the  Loire,  and  to  watch  the  fishermen  of 
Honfleur  putting  to  sea.  There  are  skies,  as  I  said,  in 
some  of  these  pictures  which  make  a  man  instinctively 
think  of  his  umbrella,  or  of  his  distance  from  home  :  no 
actual  rain-drift  stretching  from  them,  but  such  unmis- 
takable promise  of  a  rainy  afternoon,  in  their  little  par- 
allel wisps  of  dark-bottomed  clouds,  as  would  make  a 
provident  farmer  order  every  scythe  out  of  the  field. 

In  the  "  Chair  of  Gargantua,"  on  which  my  eye  falls, 
as  I  turn  over  the  pages,  an  actual  thunder-storm  is 
breaking.  The  scene  is  somewhere  upon  the  Lower 
Seine.  From  the  middle  of  the  left  of  the  picture  the 
lofty  river-bank  stretches  far  across,  forming  all  the 
background ;  —  its  extreme  distance  hidden  by  a  bold 
thrust  of  the  right  bank,  which  juts  into  the  picture  just 
far  enough  to  shelter  a  white  village,  which  lies  gleam- 
ing upon  the  edge  of  the  water.  On  all  the  foreground 
lies  the  river,  broad  as  a  bay.  The  storm  is  coming 
down  the  stream.  Over  the  left  spur  of  the  bank,  and 
over  the  meeting  of  the  banks,  it  broods  black  as  night. 
Through  a  little  rift  there  is  a  glimpse  of  serene  sky, 
from  which  a  mellow  light  streams  down  upon  the  edges 
and  angles  of  a  few  cliffs  upon  the  farther  shore.  All 
the  rest  is  heavily  shadowed.  The  edges  of  the  coming 
tempest  are  tortuous  and  convulsed,  and  you  know  that 
a  fierce  wind  is  driving  the  black  billows  on  ;  yet  al] 
the  v.-ater  under  the  lee  of  the  shores  is  as  tranquil  as 


SOUTHERN  FRANCE  AND   TROUBADOURS.    87 

a  dream  ;  a  white  sail,  near  to  the  white  village,  hangs 
slouchingly  to  the  mast :  but  in  the  foreground  the  tem- 
pest has  already  caught  the  water;  a  tall  lugger  is 
scudding  and  careening  under  it  as  if  mad ;  the  crews 
of  three  fishermen's  boats,  that  toss  on  the  vexed  water, 
are  making  a  confused  rush  to  shorten  sail,  and  you 
may  almost  fancy  that  you  hear  their  outcries  sweeping 
down  the  wind.  In  the  middle  scene,  a  little  steamer 
is  floating  tranquilly  on  water  which  is  yet  calm ;  and  a 
column  of  smoke  piling  up  from  its  tall  chimney  rises 
for  a  space  placidly  enough,  until  the  wind  catches  and 
whisks  it  before  the  storm.  I  would  wager  ten  to  one, 
upon  the  mere  proof  in  the  picture,  that  the  fisher- 
men and  the  washerwomen  in  the  foreground  will  be 
drenched  within  an  hour. 

When  I  have  once  opened  the  covers  of  Turner,  — 
especially  upon  such  a  wet  day  as  this,  —  it  is  hard  for 
me  to  leave  him  until  I  have  wandered  all  up  and  down 
the  Loire,  revisited  Tours  and  its  quiet  cathedral,  and 
Blois  with  its  stately  chateau,  and  Amboise  with  its 
statelier,  and  coquetted  again  with  memories  of  the 
Maid  of  Orleans. 

Southern  France  and  Troubadours. 

IT!  ROM  the  Upper  Loire  it  is  easy  to  slip  into  the 
*-    branching  valleys  which  sidle  away  from  it  far  down 


88  WET  DAYS. 

into  the  -country  of  the  Auvergne.  Turner  does  not 
go  there,  indeed ;  the  more  's  the  pity ;  but  I  do,  since 
it  is  the  most  attractive  region  rurally  (Brittany  perhaps 
excepted)  in  all  France.  The  valleys  are  green,  the 
brooks  are  frequent,  the  rivers  are  tortuous,  the  moun- 
tains are  high,  and  luxuriant  walnut-trees  embower  the 
roads.  It  was  near  to  Moulins,  on  the  way  hither, 
through  the  pleasant  Bourbonnois,  that  Tristram 
Shandy  met  with  the  poor,  half-crazed  Maria,  piping 
her  evening  service  to  the  Virgin. 

And  at  that  thought  I  must  do  no  less  than  pull  down 
my  "  Tristram  Shandy,"  (on  which  the  dust  of  years 
has  accumulated,)  and  read  again  that  tender  story  of 
the  lorn  maiden,  with  her  attendant  goat,  and  her  hair 
caught  up  in  a  silken  fillet,  and  her  shepherd's  pipe, 
from  which  she  pours  out  a  low,  plaintive  wail  upon  the 
evening  air. 

It  is  not  a  little  singular  that  a  British  author  should 
have  supplied  the  only  Arcadian  resident  of  all  this 
Arcadian  region.  The  Abbe  Delille  was,  indeed,  born 
hereabout,  within  sight  of  the  bold  Puy  de  Dome,  and 
within  marketing  -  distance  of  the  beautiful  Clermont 
But  there  is  very  little  that  is  Arcadian,  in  freshness  or 
simplicity,  in  either  the  "  Gardens  "  or  the  other  verse 
of  Delille. 

Out  of  his  own  mouth  (the  little  green-backed  book, 
my  boy)  I  will  condemn  him :  — 


SOUTHERN  FRANCE  AND   TROUBADOURS.    89 

"  Ce  n'est  plus  cctte  simple  et  rustique  d<?esse 
Qui  suit  ses  vieilleslois;  c'est  une  enchanteresse 
Qui,  la  baguette  en  main,  par  des  hardis  travaux 
Fait  nattre  des  aspects  et  des  tresors  nouveaux, 
Compose  un  sol  plus  riche  et  des  races  plus  belles. 
Fertilise  les  monts,  dompte  les  rocs  rebelles." 

The  baguette  of  Delille  is  no  shepherd's  crook  ;  it  has 
more  the  fashion  of  a  drumstick,  —  baguette  de  tambour. 

If  I  follow  on  southward  to  Provence,  whither  I  am 
borne  upon  the  scuds  of  rain  over  Turner's  pictures, 
and  the  pretty  Bourbonnois,  and  the  green  mountains 
of  Auvergne,  I  find  all  the  characteristic  literature  of 
that  land  of  olives  is  only  of  love  or  war :  the  vines,  the 
olive-orchards,  and  the  yellow  hill-sides  pass  for  noth- 
ing. And  if  I  read  an  old  Sirvente  of  the  Troubadours, 
beginning  with  a  certain  redolence  of  the  fields,  all  this 
yields  presently  to  knights,  and  steeds  caparisoned,  — 

"  Cavalliers  ab  cavals  armatz." 

The  poem  from  which  I  quote  has  a  smooth  sound 
and  a  certain  promise  of  ruralities.  It  is  attributed  to 
Bertrand  de  Born,*  who  lived  in  the  time  when  even 
the  lion-hearted  King  Richard  turned  his  brawny  fin- 
gers to  the  luting  of  a  song.  Let  us  listen  :  — 

"  The  beautiful  spring  delights  me  well, 

"When  flowers  and  leaves  are  growing; 
And  it  pleases  my  heart  to  hear  the  swell 
Of  the  birds'  sweet  -horus  flowing 

*  M.  Ravnouard,  Poesies  des  Troubadours,  II.  209. 


90  WET  DAYS 

In  the  echoing  wood ; 
And  I  love  to  see,  all  scattered  around, 
Pavilions  and  tents  on  the  martial  ground ; 

And  my  spirit  finds  it  good 
To  see,  on  the  level  plains  heyond, 
Gay  knights  and  steeds  caparisoned." 

But  as  the  Troubadour  nestles  more  warmly  into  the 
rhythm  of  his  verse,  the  birds  are  all  forgotten,  and  the 
beautiful  spring,  and  there  is  a  sturdy  clang  of  battle, 
that  would  not  discredit  our  own  times  :  — 

"  I  tell  you  that  nothing  my  soul  can  cheer, 

Or  banqueting  or  reposing, 
Like  the  onset  cry  of  '  Charge  them ! '  rung 
From  each  side,  as  in  battle  closing; 

Where  the  horses  neigh, 
And  the  call  to  '  aid '  is  echoing  loud, 
And  there,  on  the  earth,  the  lowly  and  proud 

In  the  foss  together  lie, 
And  yonder  is  piled  the  mingled  heap 
Of  the  brave  that  scaled  the  trenches  steep. 

"  Barons !  your  castles  in  safety  place, 

Your  cities  and  villages,  too, 
Before  ye  haste  to  the  battle-scene : 

And  Papiol !  quickly  go, 
And  tell  the  lord  of  '  Yes  and  No ' 
That  peace  already  too  long  hath  been !  "  * 

*  I  cannot  forbear  taking  a  bit  of  margin  to  print  the  closing  stan- 
zas of  the  original,  which  carry  the  clash  of  sabres  in  their  very 

sound. 

"  le  us  die  que  tan  no  m'  a  sabor 
Manjars  ni  beure  ni  dormir, 
Cum  a  quant  aug  cridar :  A  lor! 


AMONG   THE  ITALIANS.  91 

I  am  on  my  way  to  Italy,  (it  may  as  well  be  con- 
fessed,) where  I  had  fully  intended  to  open  my  rainy 
day's  work ;  but  Turner  has  kept  me,  and  then  Au- 
vergne,  and  then  the  brisk  battle-song  of  a  Trouba- 
dour. 

Among  the  Italians. 

^%TTHEN  I  was  upon  the  Cajano  farm  of  Lorenzo 
*  »  the  Magnificent,  during  my  last  "  spell  of  wet," 
it  was  uncourteous  not  to  refer  to  the  pleasant  com- 
memorative poem  of  "  Ambra,"  which  Lorenzo  himself 
wrote,  and  which,  whatever  may  be  said  against  the 
conception  and  conduct  of  it,  shows  in  its  opening 
stanzas  that  the  great  Medici  was  as  appreciative  of 
rural  images  —  fir-boughs  with  loaded  snows,  thick  cy- 
presses in  which  late  birds  lurked,  sharp-leaved  juni- 
pers, and  sturdy  pines  fighting  the  wind  —  as  ever  he 

D'  ambas  las  partz ;  et  aug  agnir 

Carals  voitz  per  1'  ombratge, 
Et  aug  cridar :  Aidatz  !  Aidatz ! 
£  vei  cazer  per  los  fossatz 

Paucs  e  grans  per  1'  crbatge, 
E  Tei  los  mortz  qne  pels  costntz 
An  los  treasons  outre  passatz. 

"  Baros,  metctz  en  gatge 
CasteU  e  vilas  e  ciututz, 
Enans  q'  usquecs  no  us  guerreiatz. 

"  Papiol,  d'  agradatge 

Ad  Oc  e  \o  t'  en  vai  vi.itz, 

Die  H  que  trop  estan  en  patz." 


92  WET  DAYS. 

had  been  of  antique  jewels,  or  of  the  verse  of  such 
as  Politiano.  And  if  I  have  spoken  slightingly  of  this 
latter  poet,  it  was  only  in  contrast  with  Virgil,  and  in 
view  of  his  strained  Latinity.  When  he  is  himself, 
and  wraps  his  fancies  only  in  his  own  sparkling  Tuscan, 
we  forget  his  classic  frigidities,  and  his  quarrels  with 
Madonna  Clarice,  and  are  willing  to  confess  that  no 
pen  of  his  time  was  dipped  with  such  a  relishing  gusto 
into  the  colors  of  the  hyacinths  and  trembling  pansies, 
and  into  all  the  blandishments  of  a  gushing  and  wan- 
ton spring.  I  may  particularly  designate  a  charming 
little  rural  poem  of  his,  entitled  "  Le  Montanine," 
charmingly  translated  by  Parr  Greswell.* 

But  classical  affectation  was  the  fashion  of  that  day. 
A  certain  Bolognese  noble,  Bero  by  name,  wrote  ten 
Latin  books  on  rural  affairs  ;  yet  they  are  little  known, 
and  never  had  any  considerable  reputation.  Another 
scholar,  Pietro  da  Barga,  who  astonished  his  teachers 
by  his  wonderful  proficiency  at  the  age  of  twelve,  and 
who  was  afterward  guest  of  the  French  ambassador  in 
Venice,  wrote  a  poem  on  rural  matters,  to  which,  with 
an  exaggerated  classicism,  he  gave  the  Greek  name 
of  "  Cynegeticon"  ;  and  about  the  same  time  Giuseppe 
Voltolina  composed  three  books  on  kitchen-gardening. 
I  name  these  writers  only  out  of  sympathy  with  their 

*  See  "Wra.  Parr  Greswell's  Memoirs  of  Politiano,  with  transla- 
tions. 


AMONG   THE  ITALIANS.  93 

topics:  I  would  not  advise  the  reading  of  them:  it 
would  involve  a  long  journey  and  scrupulous  search  to 
find  them,  through  I  know  not  what  out-of-the-way 
libraries  ;  and  if  found,  no  essentially  new  facts  or  the- 
ories could  be  counted  on  which  are  not  covered  by  the 
treatise  of  Crescenzi.  The  Pisans  or  Venetians  may 
possibly  have  introduced  a  few  new  plants  from  the 
East ;  the  example  of  the  Medici  may  have  suggested 
some  improvements  in  the  arrangement  of  forcing- 
houses,  or  the  outlay  of  villas  ;  but  in  all  that  regarded 
general  husbandry,  Crescenzi  was  still  the  man. 

I  linger  about  this  period,  and  the  writers  of  this 
time,  because  I  snuff  here  and  there  among  them  the 
perfume  of  a  country  bouquet,  which  carries  the  odor 
of  the  fields  with  it,  and  transports  me  to  the  "  em- 
purpled hill-sides  "  of  Tuscany.  Shall  I  name  Sanna- 
zaro,  with  his  "  Arcadia  "  ?  —  a  dead  book  now,  —  or 
"Amyntas,"  who,  before  he  is  tall  enough  to  steal  apples 
from  the  lowest  boughs,  (so  sings  Tasso,)  plunges  head 
and  ears  in  love  with  Sylvia,  the  fine  daughter  of 
Montano,  who  has  a  store  of  cattle,  "richissimo  tf 
armenti  "  ? 

Then  there  is  Rucellai,  who,  under  the  pontificate  of 
Leo  X.,  came  to  be  Governor  of  the  Castle  of  Sant' 
Angelo,  and  yet  has  left  a  poem  of  fifteen  hundred  lines 
devoted  to  Bees.  In  his  suggestions  for  the  allaying 
of  a  civil  war  among  these  winged  people,  he  is  quite 


94  WET  DAYS. 

beyond  either  Virgil  or  Mr.  Lincoln.  "  Pluck  sonic 
leafy  branch,"  he  says,  "  and  with  it  sprinkle  the  con- 
tending factions  with  either  honey  or  sweet  grape-juice, 
and  you  shall  see  them  instantly  forego  their  strife  "  :  — 

"  The  two  warring  bands  joyful  unite, 
And  foe  embraces  foe :  each  with  its  lips 
Licking  the  others'  wings,  feet,  arms,  and  breast, 
Whereon  the  luscious  mixture  hath  been  shed, 
And  all  inebriate  with  delight." 

So  the  Swiss,*  he  continues,  when  they  fall  out  among 
themselves,  are  appeased  by  some  grave  old  gentleman, 
who  says  a  few  pleasant  words,  and  orders  up  a  good 
stoop  of  sweet  wine,  in  which  all  parties  presently  dip 
their  beards,  and  laugh  and  embrace  and  make  peace, 
and  so  forget  outrage. 

Guarini,  with  all  his  affectations,  has  little  prettinesses 
which  charm  like  the  chirping  of  a  bird ;  —  as  where  he 
paints  (in  the  very  first  scene  of  the  "  Pastor  Fido  ") 
the  little  sparrow  flitting  from  fir  to  beech,  and  from 
beech  to  myrtle,  and  twittering,  "  How  I  love !  how  1 

*  "  Come  quando  nei  Suizzeri  si  muove 
Sedizione,  e  che  si  grida  a  1'  arme; 
Se  qualche  nom  grave  allor  si  leva  in  piede 
E  comineia  a  parlar  con  dolce  lingua, 
Mitiga  i  petti  barbari  e  feroci ; 
E  intanto  fa  portare  ondanti  vasi 
Pieni  di  dolci  eel  odorati  vini ; 
Allora  ognun  le  labbra  e  '1  mento  im  merge 
Ne'  le  spumanti  tazze,"  etc. 


AMONG   THE  ITALIANS.  95 

love  !  "  And  the  bird-mate  ("  il  suo  dolce  desio  ")  twit- 
ters in  reply,  "  How  I  love,  how  I  love,  too ! "  "  Ardo  d? 
amore  anclC  io" 

Messer  Pietro  Bembo  was  a  different  man  from  Gua- 
rini.  I  cannot  imagine  him  listening  to  the  sparrows  ; 
I  cannot  imagine  him  plucking  a  flower,  except  he 
have  some  courtly  gallantry  in  hand,  —  perhaps  toward 
the  Borgia.  He  was  one  of  those  pompous,  stiff,  scho- 
lastic prigs  who  wrote  by  rules  of  syntax  ;  and  of  syn- 
tax he  is  dead.  He  was  clever  and  learned ;  he  wrote 
in  Latin,  Italian,  Castilian :  but  nobody  reads  him ;  he 
has  only  a  little  crypt  in  the  "  Autori  Diversi."  I  think 
of  him  as  I  think  of  fine  women  who  must  always 
rustle  in  brocade  embossed  with  hard  jewels,  and  who 
never  win  the  triumphs  that  belong  to  a  charming  morn- 
ing deshabille  with  only  the  added  improvisation  of  a 
rose. 

In  his  "  Asolani"  Bembo  gives  a  very  full  and  minute 
description  of  the  gardens  at  Asolo,  which  relieved  the 
royal  retirement  of  Caterina,  the  Queen  of  Cyprus. 
Nothing  could  be  more  admirable  than  the  situation : 
there  were  skirts  of  mountains  which  were  covered,  and 
are  still  covered,  with  oaks  ;  there  were  grottos  in  the 
sides  of  cliffs,  and  water  so  disposed  —  in  jets,  in  pools 
enclosed  by  marble,  and  among  rocks  —  as  to  counter- 
feit all  the  wildness  of  Nature  ;  there  was  the  same 
stately  array  of  cypresses,  and  of  clipped  hedges,  which 


96  WET  DAYS. 

had  belonged  to  the  villas  of  Pliny ;  temples  were  dec- 
orated with  blazing  frescos,  to  which,  I  dare  say,  Car- 
paccio  may  have  lent  a  hand,  if  not  that  wild  rake, 
Giorgione.  Here  the  pretty  Queen,  with  eight  thousand 
gold  ducats  a  year,  (whatever  that  amount  may  have 
been.)  and  some  seventy  odd  retainers,  held  her  court ; 
and  here  Bembo,  a  dashing  young  fellow  at  that  time 
of  seven  or  eight  and  twenty,  became  a  party  to  those 
disquisitions  on  Love,  and  to  those  recitations  of  song, 
part  of  which  he  has  recorded  in  the  "  Asolani."  I  am 
sorry  to  say,  the  beauty  of  the  place,  so  far  as  regards 
its  artificial  features,  is  now  all  gone.  The  hall,  which 
may  have  served  as  the  presence-chamber  of  the  Queen, 
was  only  a  few  years  since  doing  service  as  a  farmer's 
barn  ;  and  the  traces  of  a  Diana  and  an  Apollo  were 
still  coloring  the  wall  under  which  a  few  cows  were 
crunching  their  clover-hay. 

All  the  gardening  of  Italy  at  that  period,  as,  indeed, 
at  almost  all  times,  depended  very  much  upon  architec- 
tural accessories :  colonnades  and  wall-veil  with  frescos 
make  a  large  part  of  Italian  gardening  to  this  day. 
The  Isbla  Bella  in  the  Lago  Maggiore,  and  the  Bor- 
ghese  Garden  at  Rome,  are  fair  types.  And  as  I  recall 
the  sunny  vistas  of  this  last,  and  the  noontide  loungings 
upon  the  marble  seats,  counting  white  flecks  of  statues 
amid  the  green  of  cypresses,  and  watching  the  shadow 
which  some  dense-topped  pine  flings  upon  a  marble 


AMONG   THE  ITALIANS.  97 

flight  of  steps  or  a  marble  balustrade,  I  cannot  sneer  at 
the  Italian  gardening,  or  wish  it  were  other  than  it  is. 
The  art-life  of  Italy  is  the  crowning  and  the  overlap- 
ping life.  The  Campagna  seems  only  a  bit  of  foreground 
to  carry  the  leaping  arches  of  the  aqueducts,  and  to  throw 
the  hills  of  Tivoli  and  Albauo  to  a  purple  distance. 
The  farmers  (fattori)  who  gallop  across  the  fields,  in 
rough  sheepskin  wrappers,  and  upon  scurvy-looking 
ponies,  are  more  picturesque  than  thrifty ;  and  if  I  gal- 
lop in  company  with  one  of  them  to  his  home  upon  the 
farther  edge  of  the  Campagna,  (which  is  an  allowable 
wet-day  fancy,)  I  shall  find  a  tall  stone  house  smeared 
over  roughly  with  plaster,  and  its  ground-floor  devoted 
to  a  crazy  cart,  a  pony,  a  brace  of  cows,  and  a  few  goats ; 
a  rude  court  is  walled  in  adjoining  the  house,  where  a 
few  pigs  are  grunting.  Ascending  an  oaken  stair-way 
within  the  door,  I  come  upon  the  living-room  of  the 
fattore  ;  the  beams  overhead  are  begrimed  with  smoke, 
and  garnished  here  and  there  with  flitches  of  bacon  ;  a 
scant  fire  of  fagots  is  struggling  into  blaze  upon  an  open 
hearth ;  and  on  a  low  table,  bare  of  either  cloth  or 
cleanliness,  there  waits  him  his  supper  of  polenta,  which 
is  nothing  more  or  less  than  our  plain  boiled  Indian- 
pudding,  Add  to  this  a  red-eyed  dog,  that  seems  to  be 
a  savage  representative  of  a  Scotch  colley,  —  a  lean, 
wrinkled,  dark-faced  woman,  who  is  unwinding  the  ban- 
dages from  a  squalling  bambino,  —  a  mixed  odor  of 
7 


98  WET  DAYS. 

garlic  and  of  goats,  that  is  quickened  with  an  amnio- 
niacal  pungency,  —  and  you  may  form  some  idea  of 
the  home  of  a  small  Roman  farmer  in  our  day.  It 
falls  away  from  the  standard  of  Cato;  and  so  does 
the  man. 

He  takes  his  twenty  or  thirty  acres,  upon  shares,  from 
some  wealthy  proprietor  of  Rome,  whose  estate  may 
possibly  cover  a  square  mile  or  two  of  territory.  He 
sells  vegetables,  poultry,  a  little  grain,  a  few  curds,  and 
possibly  a  butt  or  two  of  sour  wine.  He  is  a  type  of  a 
great  many  who  lived  within  the  limits  of  the  old 
Papal  territory:  whether  he  and  they  have  dropped 
their  musty  skeepskins  and  shaken  off  their  unthrift 
under  the  new  government,  I  cannot  say. 

Around  Bologna,  indeed,  there  was  a  better  race  of 
farmers :  the  intervening  thrift  of  Tuscany  had  always 
its  influence.  The  meadows  of  Terni,  too,  which  are 
watered  by  the  Velino,  bear  three  full  crops  of  grass  in 
the  season  ;  the  valley  of  the  Clitumnus  is  like  a  minia- 
ture of  the  Genesee  ;  and  around  Perugia  the  crimson- 
tasselled  clovers,  in  the  season  of  their  bloom,  give  to 
the  fields  the  beauty  of  a  garden. 

The  old  Duke  of  Tuscany,  before  he  became  soured 
by  his  political  mishaps,  was  a  great  patron  of  agricul- 
tural improvements.  He  had  princely  farms  in  the 
neighborhood  both  of  his  capital  and  of  Pisa.  Of  the 
latter  I  cannot  speak  from  personal  observation ;  but 


AMONG   THE  ITALIANS.  99 

the  dairy-farm,  Gascina,  near  to  Florence,  can  hardly 
have  been  much  inferior  to  the  Cajano  property  of  the 
great  Lorenzo.  The  stables  were  admirably  arranged, 
and  of  permanent  character ;  the  neatness  was  equal  to 
that  of  the  dairies  of  Holland.  The  Swiss  cows,  of  a 
pretty  dun-color,  were  kept  stalled,  and  luxuriously  fed 
upon  freshly  cut  ray-grass,  clover,  or  vetches,  with  an 
occasional  sprinkling  of  meal;  the  calves  were  invari- 
ably reared  by  hand ;  and  the  average  per  diem  of  milk, 
throughout  the  season,  was  stated  at  fourteen  quarts ; 
and  I  think  Madonna  Clarice  never  strained  more  than 
this  into  the  cheese-tubs  of  Ambra.  I  trust  the  burgh- 
ers of  Florence,  and  the  new  Gonfaloniere,  whoever  he 
may  be,-  will  not  forget  the  dun  cows  of  the  Cascina,  or 
their  baitings  with  the  tender  vetches. 

The  redemption  of  the  waste  marsh-lands  in  the  Val 
di  Chiana  by  the  engineering  skill  of  Fossombroni,  and 
the  consequent  restoration  of  many  thousands  of  acres 
which  seemed  hopelessly  lost  to  fertility,  is  a  result  of 
which  the  Medici  would  hardly  have  dreamed,  and 
which  would  do  credit  to  any  age  or  country. 

About  the  better  -  cultivated  portions  of  Lombardy 
there  is  an  almost  regal  look.  The  roads  are  straight, 
and  of  most  admirable  construction.  Lines  of  trees  lift 
their  stateliness  on  either  side,  and  carry  trailing  fes- 
toons of  vines.  On  both  sides  streams  of  water  are 
flowing  in  artificial  canals,  interrupted  here  and  there 


100  WET  DAYS. 

by  cross  sluices  and  gates,  by  means  of  which  any  or 
all  of  the  fields  can  be  laid  under  water  at  pleasure,  so 
that  old  meadows  return  three  and  four  cuttings  of  grass 
in  the  year.  There  are  patches  of  Indian-corn  which 
are  equal  to  any  that  can  be  seen  on  the  Miami ;  hemp 
and  flax  appear  at  intervals,  and  upon  the  lower  lands 
rice.  The  barns  are  huge  in  size,  and  are  raised  from 
the  ground  upon  columns  of  masonry. 

I  have  a  dapper  little  note-book  of  travel,  from  which 
these  facts  are  mainly  taken ;  and  at  the  head  of  one 
of  its  pages  I  observe  an  old  ink  -  sketch  of  a  few 
trees,  with  festoons  of  vines  between.  It  is  yellowed 
now,  and  poor  always ;  for  I  am  but  a  dabbler  at  such 
things.  Yet  it  brings  back,  clearly  and  briskly,  the 
broad  stretch  of  Lombard  meadows,  the  smooth  Mac- 
adam, the  gleaming  canals  of  water,  the  white  finials  of 
Milan  Cathedral  shining  somewhere  in  the  distance, 
the  thrushes,  as  in  the  ''Pastor  Fido,"  filling  all  the 
morning  air  with  their  sweet 

"  Ardo  d'  amore !  ardo  d'  amore !  " 

the  dewy  clover-lots,  looking  like  wavy  silken  plush,  the 
green  glitter  of  mulberry-leaves,  and  the  beggar  in 
steeple-crowned  hat,  who  says,  "  Grazia"  and  "  A  rive- 
dervi  /  "  as  I  drop  him  a  few  kreutzers,  and  rattle  away 
to  the  North,  and  out  of  Italy. 


CONRAD  HERESBACH.  101 

Conrad  Heresbach. 

ABOUT  the  year  1570,  Conrad  Heresbach,  who  was 
Councillor  to  the  Duke  of  Cleves,  (brother  to  that 
unfortunate  Anne  of  Cleves,  a  wife-victim  of  Henry 
VHI.,)  wrote  four  Latin  books  on  rustic  affairs,  which 
were  translated  by  Barnaby  Googe,  a  Lincolnshire 
farmer  and  poet,  who  was  in  his  day  gentleman-pen- 
sioner to  Queen  Elizabeth.  Our  friend  Barnaby  intro- 
duces his  translation  in  this  style :  —  "I  haue  thought 
it  meet  (good  Reader)  for  thy  further  profit  &  pleasure, 
to  put  into  English  these  foure  Bookes  of  Husbandry, 
collected  &  set  forth  by  Master  Conrade  Heresbatch, 
a  great  &  a  learned  Counceller  of  the  Duke  of  Cleues  : 
not  thinking  it  reason,  though  I  haue  altered  &  in- 
creased his  worke,  with  mine  owne  readings  §  observa- 
tions, ioined  with  the  experience  of  sundry  my  friends, 
to  take  from  him  (as  diuers  in  the  like  case  haue  done) 
the  honour  &  glory  of  his  owne  trauaile  :  Neither  is  it 
my  minde,  that  this  either  his  doings  or  mine,  should 
deface,  or  any  wayes  darken  the  good  enterprise,  or 
painfull  trauailes  of  such  our  countrymen  of  Eng- 
land, as  haue  plentifully  written  of  this  matter:  but 
always  haue,  &  do  giue  them  the  reuerence  &  hon- 
our due  to  so  vertuous,  &  well  disposed  Gentlemen, 
namely,  Master  Fitz  herbert,  &  Master  Tusser :  whose 
workes  may,  in  my  fancie,  without  any  presumption, 


102  WET  DAYS. 

compare  with  any,  either  Varro,  Columella,  or  Palla- 
dins  of  Rome" 

There  is  a  delightful  simplicity  of  manner  about  the 
conduct  of  this  old  "  Book  of  Husbandry,"  of  which,  I 
doubt  not,  a  large  measure  is  to  be  attributed  to  the 
Lincolnshire  farmer.  It  is,  like  the  greater  part  of 
Xenophon's  "  (Economicus, "  in  the  form  of  dialogue, 
and  its  quaintness,  its  naivete,  its  Christian  unction,  give 
good  reason  for  the  suggestion  of  Sir  Harris  Nicolas, 
—  that  we  are  indebted  to  it  for  Walton's  cast  of  the 
"  Angler."  The  parties  to  the  first  conversation,  "  Of 
Earable-ground  and  Tillage,"  are  Cono,  a  country-gen- 
tleman, Metella,  his  wife,  Rigo,  a  citizen,  and  Hermes, 
a  servant. 

"  Ah  maister  Cono  (says  Rigo,)  I  am  glad  I  haue 
found  you  in  the  midst  of  your  country  pleasures : 
surely  you  are  a  happy  man,  that  shifting  yourselfe  from 
the  turmoiles  of  the  court,  can  picke  out  so  quiet  a 
life,  &  giving  over  all,  can  secretly  lie  hid  in  the  pleas- 
ant Countries,  suffering  us  in  the  meane  time  to  be  tost 
with  the  cares  &  businesse  of  the  common  weale." 

And  thereupon  the  discourse  opens  concerning  the 
pleasures  and  duties  of  a  country-life,  and  the  reconcile- 
ment of  them  with  a  due  regard  for  the  public  welfare. 
And  as  they  push  on  good-naturedly  in  the  discussion, 
Rigo  says,  "Tell  me  I  beseech  you,  how  you  bestow 
your  time,  &  how  you  are  occupied  all  the  day." 


CONRAD  HERESBACH.  103 

With  which  request  Cono  most  willingly  complies, 
and  gives  us  this  unique  picture  of  the  occupations  of 
a  well-to-do  country-gentleman  of  the  Continent,  about 
the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  century :  — 

"  I  use  commonly  to  rise,  first  of  all  myselfe,  specially 
in  Sommer,  when  we  lose  the  healthfullest  &  sweet- 
est time  with  sluggishnesse.  In  the  Winter,  if  I  be 
loathe,  if  either  the  unreasonablenesse  of  the  weather 
or  sicknesse  cause  me  to  keepe  my  bed,  I  commit  all  to 
my  Steward,  whose  faith  &  diligence  I  am  sure  of, 
whom  I  haue  so  well  instructed,  that  I  may  safely  make 
him  my  deputie :  I  haue  also  Euriclia  my  maid,  so  skil- 
ful in  huswifery,  that  shee  may  well  be  my  wives  suffra- 
gan ;  these  twaine  we  appoint  to  supply  our  places  :  but 
if  the  weather  &  time  serve,  I  play  the  workemaster 
myselfe.  And  though  I  haue  a  Baylife  as  skilfull  as 
may  be,  yet  remembering  the  old  saying,  that  the  best 
doung  for  the  field  is  the  master's  foot,  &  the  best 
provender  for  the  Horse  the  Masters  eye,  I  play  the 
overseer  myselfe. 

"  When  my  servants  are  all  set  to  worke,  &  everie 
man  as  busie  as  may  be,  I  get  me  into  my  closet  to 
serve  God,  &  to  reade  the  holy  Scriptures:  (for  this 
order  I  always  keepe  to  appoint  myselfe  everie  day  my 
taske,  in  reading  some  part  either  of  the  old  Testament 
or  of  the  new  ;)  that  done,  I  write  or  read  such  things 
as  I  thinke  most  needfull,  or  dispatch  what  businesse 


104  WET  DAYS. 

soever  I  have  in  my  house,  or  with  sutors  abroad.  A 
little  before  dinner  I  walke  out,  if  it  be  faire,  either  in 
my  garden,  or  in  the  fields ;  if  it  be  foule,  in  my  gal- 
lerie  :  when  I  come  in,  I  find  an  egge,  a  chicke,  a  peece 
of  kid,  or  a  peece  of  veale,  fish,  butter,  &  such  like, 
as  my  foldes,  my  yarde,  or  my  dairie  &  fishponds  will 
yeeld :  sometimes  a  Sallat,  or  such  fruits  as  the  garden 
or  orchard  doth  beare:  which  victuals  without  aney 
charges  my  wife  provideth  me,  wherewith  I  content  my- 
selfe  as  well  as  if  I  had  the  daintiest  dish  in  Europe :  I 
never  lightly  sit  above  one  houre  at  my  meate :  after 
dinner  I  passe  the  time  with  talking  with  my  wife,  my 
servants,  or  if  I  have  any,  with  my  ghests :  I  rise  & 
walke  about  my  ground,  where  I  view  my  workemen, 
my  Pastures,  my  Meddowes,  my  Corne,  &  my  Cattel. 
....  In  the  meanwhile  I  behold  the  wonderfull  wise- 
dome  of  Nature  &  the  incomprehensible  working  of  the 
most  Mighty  God  in  his  creatures.  Here  waigh  I  with 
myselfe,  the  benefits  &  wonderfull  workes  of  His,  who 
bringeth  forth  grasse  for  the  Cattel,  &  greene  hearbe 
for  the  use  of  man.  "With  these  sights  do  I  recreate 
my  minde,  &  give  thanks  unto  God  the  creator  &  con- 
server  of  all  things,  singing  the  song  '  Praise  thou  the 
Lord  oh  my  soule  ! ' 

"  Then  returning  home,  I  go  to  writing  or  reading,  or 
such  other  businesse  as  I  have :  but  with  study  or  inven- 
tion, I  never  meddle  in  three  houres  after  I  have  dined. 


CONRAD  HERESBACH.  105 

I  suppe  with  a  small  pittance,  &  after  supper  I  either 
seldome  or  never  write  or  reade,  but  rather  passe  the 
time  seeing  my  sheepe  come  home  from  the  Fielde,  & 
my  Oxen  dragging  home  the  plow  with  weary  neckes, 
in  beholding  the  pleasant  pastures  sweetly  smelling 
about  my  house,  &  my  heards  of  Cattel  lowing  hard 
by  mee  :  sometimes  I  list  to  rest  mee  under  an  old 
Holme,  sometimes  upon  the  greene  grasse ;  in  the 
meantime  passeth  by  mee  the  pleasant  River,  the 
streames  falling  from  the  springs  with  a  comfortable 
noise ;  or  else  walking  by  the  River-side,  or  in  my  gar- 
den or  neerest  pastures,  I  confer  with  my  wife  or  ser- 
vants of  husbandry,  appointing  what  tilings  I  will  have 
done :  if  my  Baylife  have  any  thing  to  say,  if  any  thing 
be  to  be  bought  or  sold :  for  a  good  husband,  as  Cato 
saith,  must  rather  bee  a  seller  than  a  buyer.  Sometimes, 
(specially  in  winter)  after  supper,  I  make  my  minister 
to  tell  something  out  of  the  holy  Scripture,  or  else  some 
pleasant  story,  so  that  it  be  honest  &  godly,  &  such 
as  may  edifie.  Two  or  three  hours  after  supper  I  get 
me  to  bed,  &  commonly  as  I  said  before,  the  last  in 
the  house  except  my  Chamberlaine  &  my  Steward." 

Heresbach  cites  familiarly  and  very  frequently  the 
elder  authors,  particularly  Cato  and  Varro ;  he  accepts 
with  an  easy  conscience  too  many  of  the  old  fables  of 
the  Latinists  ;  he  has  abiding  faith  in  "  the  moon  being 
aloft  "  in  time  of  sowing ;  he  assures  us  that  "  if  you 


106  WET  DAYS. 

graffe  your  peare  upon  a  Mulbery,  you  shall  have  red 
Peares ;  the  Medlar  being  grafted  upon  the  Thome,  the 
graffe  groweth  to  great  bignesse  ;  Upon  the  Pine  tree  it 
bringeth  a  sweet  fruit  but  not  lasting."  Again  he  tells 
us,  "  If  you  break  to  powder  the  home  of  a  Rain  & 
sowe  it  watering  it  well,  it  is  thought  it  will  come  to  be 
good  Sperage  "  (asparagus). 

Yet  he  holds  in  proper  discredit  the  heathen  galaxy 
of  gods,  and  when  Thrasybulus  (one  of  the  parties  to 
his  talk  upon  orcharding)  asks  who  first  planted  the 
vine,  and  says  "  the  common  sort  doe  attribute  the  first 
invention  of  it  to  Bacchus,"  the  good  Heresbach  (in  the 
person  of  Marius)  puts  him  down  in  this  style :  "  We 
that  are  taught  by  God's  holy  worde,  doe  know  that  it 
was  first  found  out  by  the  Patriarke  Noah,  immediately 
after  the  drowning  of  the  world :  It  may  be,  the  Wine 
was  before  that  time,  though  the  planting  &  the  use 
thereof  was  not  then  knowne.  The  heathen  both  most 
falsely  &  very  fondly,  as  in  many  other  things,  doe 
give  the  invention  of  the  same  unto  the  God  Bacchus. 
But  Noah  lived  many  yeeres  before  either  Bacchus,  Sa- 
turnus,  or  Uranius  were  borne." 

Of  butter,  upon  which  the  elder  Latinists  *  do  not 
descant,  he  gives  us  this  primitive  account ;  and  I  know 

*  The  word  butyrtim  occurs  once  in  Columella,  as  an  application  to  a 
wound  in  a  sheep.  Even  Crescenzi  make?  no  mention  of  butter,  and 
talks  in  an  apologetic  strain  of  the  cheese  made  from  the  milk  of  cows, 
—  "  il  loro  latte  e  cascio  assai  si  con  fa  alluso  de  1'  huomo,  advenga  che 
non  sia  coei  buono  come  quello  de  la  pecora."  Lib.  IX.  cap.  Ixvi. 


CONRAD  HERESBACH.  107 

no  earlier  one :  —  "Of  milke  is  made  Butter,  whose  use 
(though  chiefely  at  this  day  among  the  Flemings)  is 
yet  a  good  &  profitable  foode  in  other  countries,  & 
much  used  of  our  old  Fathers,  yea  even  of  the  very 
Patriarches  (as  the  Scriptures  witnesseth).  The  com- 
moditie  thereof  besides  many  other,  is  the  asswaging  of 
hunger,  &  the  preserving  of  strength :  it  is  made  in 
this  sorte.  The  Milke,  as  soone  as  it  is  milked,  is  put 
out  of  the  Paile  into  Bowles  or  Pannes,  the  best  are 
earthen  Pannes,  &  those  rather  broad  than  deepe: 
this  done,  the  second  or  the  third  day,  the  creame  that 
swimmes  aloft  is  fleeted  off,  &  put  into  a  vessel  rather 
deepe  than  big,  round  &  cilinder  fashion :  although  in 
other  places  they  have  other  kind  of  Charmes,  low  & 
flat,  wherein  with  often  beating  &  moving  up  &  downe, 
they  so  shake  the  milke,  as  they  sever  the  thinnest 
part  off  from  the  thicke,  which  at  the  first,  gathers  to- 
gether in  little  crombles,  &  after  with  the  continuance 
of  the  violent  moving,  commeth  to  a  whole  wedge 
or  cake :  thus  it  is  taken  out  &  either  eaten  fresh,  or 
barrelled  with  salt." 

I  have  before  me  two  editions  of  this  old  work :  the 
first  of  Barnaby  Googe,  published  in  1614,  and  the 
second  newly  compiled  with  additions  by  Captaine 
Garvase  Markhame,  and  bearing  date  of  1631.  From 
this  we  may  infer  that  the  book  had  considerable  popu- 
larity in  England ;  and  it  is  curious  to  observe  how  the 


108  WET  DAYS. 

gallant  Captain  has  filed  away  many  of  the  religious 
reflections  of  Heresbach  or  of  Googe,  and  introduced 
such  addenda  as  show  him  to  have  been  a  high  liver 
and  an  ardent  sportsman.  Thus  when  Barnaby  has 
brought  to  an  end  his  pleasant  talk  about  the  vine,  the 
Captain  adds  this  rule  for  giving  an  aromatic  flavor 
to  the  grape.  "  You  shall  take,"  he  says,  "  Damask 
rose  water  &  boyle  therein  the  powder  of  cloaves,  cin- 
amon,  three  graines  of  Amber  &  one  of  Muske,  & 
when  it  is  come  to  be  somewhat  thicke,  take  a  round 
gouge  &  make  an  hole  on  the  maine  stocke  of  the 
Vine,  full  as  deepe  as  the  heart,  &  then  put  therein 
the  medicine,  stopping  the  hole  with  Cypress  or  Juniper, 
&  the  next  Grapes  which  shall  spring  out  of  the  vine 
will  taste  as  if  they  were  perfumed." 

Again,  Barnaby  closes  his  discourse  of  "  Hennes  " 
with  a  pleasant  allusion  to  that  "  Christian  Gentlewom- 
an of  milde  &  sweet  disposition,  the  Ladie  Hales  of 
Kent,"  who  used  to  make  capons  of  her  turkey-cocks : 
the  ungallant  Captain  drops  the  compliment  to  the 
Ladie  Hales,  and  gives  us  three  or  four  pages  upon 
cock-fighting ;  "  for  my  owne  part,"  says  he,  "  I  doe  not 
finde  (in  this  Kingdome  of  ours)  any  monument  of 
pleasure  whatsoever  more  ancient  than  the  cock-pit." 

Upon  the  last  page  of  the  book  are  some  rules  for 
purchasing  land,  which  I  suspect  are  to  be  attributed 
to  the  poet  of  Lincolnshire,  rather  than  to  Heresbach. 


CONRAD  HERESBACH.  100 

They  are  as  good  as  they  were  then ;  and  the  poetry 
none  the  worse  :  — 

"  First  see  that  the  land  be  clear 
In  title  of  the  seller; 
And  that  it  stand  in  danger 
Of  no  woman's  dowrie ; 
See  whether  the  tenure  be  bond  or  free, 
And  release  of  every  fee  of  fee ; 
See  that  the  seller  be  of  age, 
And  that  it  lie  not  in  mortgage ; 
Whether  ataile  be  thereof  found, 
And  whether  it  stand  in  statute  bound ; 
Consider  what  service  longeth  thereto, 
And  what  quit  rent  thereout  must  goe ; 
•  And  if  it  become  of  a  wedded  woman, 

Think  thou  then  on  covert  baron ; 
And  if  thou  may  in  any  wise, 
Make  thy  charter  in  warrantise, 
To  thee,  thine  heyres,  assignes  also ; 
Thus  should  a  wise  purchaser  doe." 

The  learned  Lipsius  was  a  contemporary  and  a  not 
far-off  neighbor  of  Councillor  Heresbach  ;  and  although 
his  orthodoxy  was  somewhat  questionable,  and  his  Cal- 
vinism somewhat  stretchy,  there  can  be  no  doubt  of  the 
honest  rural  love  which  belongs  to  some  of  his  letters, 
and  especially  to  this  smack  of  verse  (I  dare  not  say 
poetry)  with  which  he  closes  his  Eighth  (  Cent.  I.)  :  — 

"  Vitam  si  liceat  mihi 
Fpnnare  arbitriis  meis : 
Xon  fasces  cupiam  aut  opes, 
Non  clarus  niveis  equis 


110  WET  DAYS. 

Captiva  agmina  traxerim. 

ID  soils  habitem  locis, 
Hortos  possideam  at  quo  agros, 
Illic  ad  strepitus  aquae 
Musarura  studiis  fruar. 

Sic  cum  fata  mild  ultima 
Pernerit  Lachesis  mea; 
Tranquillus  moriar  seuex." 

I  have  ventured  to  English  it  in  this  way :  — 

Were  it  given  to  me  to  choose 
The  life  that  I  would  live, 
No  honors  I  'd  ask,  no  gold, 
No  car  with  snowy  steeds 
Trailing  its  captive  bands. 
In  lonely  places  I  'd  live 
"With  gardens  and  fields  my  own. 
There,  to  the  murmur  of  streams, 
Of  poets  I  'd  drink  my  fill. 
So,  when  at  the  last  Lachesis 
Should  clip  the  fateful  thread, 
She  'd  find  me  waiting  and  willing, 
An  old  man  tranquilly  dead. 

La  Maison  Rustique. 

I  PASS  over  the  Rhine  —  using  books  for  stepping- 
stones  —  into  the  French  territory.  In  the  pleasant 
country  of  the  Ardeche,  at  the  little  town  of  Villeneuve- 
le-Berg,  —  a  half-day's  ride  away  from  the  Rhone  bank 
and  but  a  little  farther  from  the  famous  vineyard  of  the 
Hermitage,  —  there  is  a  monument  to  the  memory  of 


LA   MAI  SON  RUSTIQ.UE.  Ill 

Olivier  de  Serres,  who  is  fondly  called  the  Father  of 
French  agriculture,  and  who  is  specially  honored  be- 
cause he  first  introduced  the  culture  of  the  mulberry 
and  the  rearing  of  silk-worms.  Every  peasant  of  that 
region  feels  a  debt  of  gratitude  to  him,  which  he  ac- 
knowledges by  the  pride  he  entertains  in  his  monument 
of  Villeneuve-le-Berg.  The  French  have  a  delight- 
fully open-hearted  way  of  declaring  their  allegiance  to 
their  benefactors,  and  of  setting  up  memorials  to  them. 
It  is  true  they  take  on  a  frenzy  every  century  or  two  of 
ripping  open  the  tombs  of  kings,  or  emperors,  —  even 
of  such  as  their  darling  Henri  Quatre,  —  and  sowing 
their  ashes  broadcast.  But  there  are  some  memories 
they  cherish  unflinchingly,  and  some  monuments  they 
will  always  guard :  that  of  Olivier  de  Serres  is  one  of 
them.  He  enjoyed  in  his  latter  years  the  special  pat- 
ronage of  Henri  IV.,  and  his  great  work,  "Theatre 
d' Agriculture,"  may  be  reckoned  the  first  considerable 
contribution  to  the  literature  of  the  subject  in  France. 

At  about  the  same  period,  Charles  Estienne,  brother 
of  the  famous  printer,  and  himself  a  printer  and  physi- 
cian, wrote  largely  on  rural  subjects,  collecting  his  vari- 
ous treatises  finally  under  the  name  of  "  Praedium  Rus- 
ticum,"  which  he  afterward  translated  into  French,  and 
called  "  La  Maison  Rustique."  The  work  was  largely 
added  to  by  Liebault,  his  son-in-law;  and.  with  such 
successive  improvements  and  emendations,  year  after 


112  WET  DAYS. 

year,  as  have  almost  buried  the  original,  it  has  come 
fairly  down  to  our  own  day,  and  is  thought  a  neces- 
sary purchase  by  every  country-gentleman  in  France. 

I  have  before  me  now  an  old  English  edition  of  the 
book,  dated  1616,  translated  by  Richard  Surflet  and 
"  newly  Reviewed,  Corrected  and  Augmented,  with  di- 
vers large  additions,"  by  our  friend  Garvase  Markhani. 
A  great  many  absurd  fables  are  told  in  it  with  a  curious 
air  of  gravity ;  thus  if  a  farmer  would  know  the  price  of 
corn,  he  says,  "  Let  him  chuse  out  at  adventure  twelve 
graines  of  Come  the  first  day  of  Januarie,  let  him 
make  cleane  the  fire-Harth,  and  kindle  a  fire  there- 
upon ;  afterward  let  him  call  some  boy  or  girle  of  his 
neighbors,  or  of  his  owne  house,  let  him  command  the 
partie  to  put  one  of  these  graines  upon  the  Harth, 
made  verie  cleane  and  hot :  then  hee  shall  marke  if  the 
said  graine  do  leape  or  lye  still :  if  it  leape  a  little,  then 
corne  shall  be  reasonably  cheape ;  but  if  it  leape  verie 
much  it  shall  be  verie  cheape ;  if  it  leape  toward  the 
fire  more  or  lesse,  corne  shall  be  more  or  lesse  deare  ; 
if  it  lye  still  and  leape  not,  then  Corne  shall  stand  at 
one  price  for  this  first  moneth." 

I  wish  that  our  modern  speculators  in  bread-stuffs 
were  capable  of  formularies  as  innocent ;  but  I  fear  their 
motives  of  sale  or  purchase  are  warmed  by  a  hotter  fire 
than  belongs  to  any  earthly  hearth-stone.  Liebault, 
being  a  physician,  mingles-  a  great  deal  of  medical  ad- 


LA  MAISON  RUST1QUE.  113 

vice  with  the  agricultural.  Thus  he  suggests  to  us  a 
certain  familiar  remedy  for  an  old  style  of  headache,  in 
this  fashion  :  —  "If  the  Head  complaine  itselfe  of  too 
much  Drinke,  there  may  be  made  a  Frontlet  with  wild 
Time,  Maiden-haire,  and  Roses ;  or  else  to  drinke  of 
the  shavings  of  Hartshorne,  with  Fountaine  or  River 
water :  or  if  you  see  that  your  stomacke  be  not  sicke, 
thou  mayst  take  of  the  haire  of  the  Beast  that  hath 
made  thee  ill,  and  drinke  off  a  good  glasse  of  Wine." 
Again,  where  he  talks  of  pine-trees  he  says,  (and 
modern  practitioners  will  agree  with  him  in  this  also,) 
"  such  as  have  weake  lungs,  must  goe  a  taking  of  the 
ayre  into  the  pine  Forests."  He  tells  us  that  an  apple 
grafted  upon  the  pear  will  produce  the  fruit  called 
"  pearmains,"  and  if  they  be  grafted  on  quinces,  "  you 
shall  have  Paradise  apples."  But  on  the  other  hand, 
he  questions  the  old  stories  of  promiscuous  grafting, 
and  insists  that  rosin-bearing  trees  cannot  be  grafted. 
To  have  great  cherries,  he  says,  "  you  must  often  break 
the  cherry  tree,"  —  a  notion  which  has  its  confirmation 
in  the  modern  practice  of  heading  in  old  trees  for  the 
sake  of  producing  fresh-bearing  wood.  He  advises 
mulching,  and  constant  tillage  of  both  orcharding  and' 
vines.  He  urges  the  winter  foddering  of  cattle  from 
stacks  about  the  meadows,  in  order  to  secure  a  proper 
distribution  of  the  manure,  —  a  slovenly  practice  for 
which  too  many  New-England  farmers  will  be  glad  to 
8 


114  WET  DAYS. 

find  a  respectable  authority,  although  it  be  some  three 
centuries  old.  Any  distribution  is,  it  is  true,  better 
than  none ;  but  the  waste  on  the  score  of  food,  of  fat, 
and  of  manure,  is  by  far  too  great  to  warrant  any  en- 
couragement of  the  system. 

The  reader  may  be  interested  in  seeing  some  names 
of  esteemed  apples  in  that  time,  —  such  as  Ruddocke, 
Rambur,  Fairewife,  Gastlet,  Great-eye,  Greening,  Bar- 
barian, and  among  special  favorites  were  Shortstart, 
Honiemeale,  and  Garden-globe.  Liebault  is  moreover 
the  first,  I  believe,  to  introduce  to  the  European  public 
some  of  the  mysteries  of  the  tobacco-plant.  It  was 
quite  new  in  his  day,  and  had  been  brought,  he  tells  us, 
by  the  captain  of  a  ship  trading  with  the  Floridas.  Out 
of  respect  to  Master  John  Nicot,  he  urges  that  it  be 
called  Nicotiana ;  and  he  enumerates  some  dozen  or 
more  of  diseases  and  aches  which  it  will  infallibly  cure, 
while  he  sums  up  the  testimony  thereto  with  as  pretty  a 
grace  and  as  loud  assurance  as  Dr.  Brandreth  could 
command.  I  venture  to  introduce  his  description  of 
one  curative  method  which  is  entertained  kindly  by  a 
few  old-fashioned  persons  even  now  :  — 

"  If  you  take  of  the  best  Tabacco  or  Nicotiana,  and 
twine  it  very  hard  as  you  can  together,  then  with  a  knife 
shred  it  very  small  and  spreading  it  upon  a  cleane  sheet 
of  paper,  drie  it  over  a  gentle  fire  made  of  charcoale, 
then  when  it  is  cold  you  shall  put  it  into  a  Tabacco  pipe 


FRENCH  RURALISMS.  115 

that  is  verie  cleane  or  new  burnt  (the  figure  thereof  is 
needless  to  relate,  because  the  world  is  so  much  en- 
chanted therewith,  that  not  anything  whatever  is  halfe 
so  common  as  this  is  now  a  daies)  and  having  stopt  it 
hard  into  the  pipe,  you  shall  with  a  Wax  candle,  or  other 
sweet  flame,  set  it  on  fire,  and  then  sucking  and  drawing 
the  Smoake  into  your  mouth,  you  shall  force  the  fume 
forth  at  your  nostrills,  which  fume  will  (if  the  head  be 
well  covered)  make  that  you  shall  avoid  at  the  mouth 
such  quantitie  of  slimy  and  flegmatick  water,  as  that 
your  body  will  thereby  become  leane,  as  if  you  had 
fasted  long :  by  which  one  may  conjecture  that  the 
dropsie  not  confirmed  may  be  holpen  by  taking  the 
same  fume  :  the  same  fume  taken  at  the  mouth  is  singu- 
lar good  for  them  that  have  a  short  breath,  old  cough, 
or  rheumes." 

Had  Dr.  Liebault  been  a  nurseryman  and  lived  at 
Brooklyn  or  Rochester,  I  should  have  suspected  him 
of  having  a  "  limited  number  of  fine  stocky  plants  "  of 
this  valuable  herb  for  sale. 

French  Ruralisms. 

T  DO  not  find  much  among  the  older  French  writers 
-*-  to  stimulate  one  who  is  agriculturally,  or  even  pas- 
torally  inclined.  They  hold  their  places  on  the  shelves 
of  a  country-library,  like  city-guests  at  a  country-table. 


116  WET  DAYS. 

They  overbear  one  with  the  grand  air  they  carry.  No 
homely  sounds  chime  with  the  chatter  of  them.  The 
truth  is,  the  French  do  not  love  the  country ;  a  mouldy 
chateau  with  extinguisher-turrets  lifting  above  a  copse 
of  poplars,  which  is  set  all  astir  in  October  with  a  little 
coterie  of  Parisians  who  bang  at  the  birds,  (without 
much  harming  them,)  and  play  piquet,  and  talk  of 
Paris,  —  this  is  their  measure  of  country-delights.  Or 
if  a  little  more  of  sentiment  is  grafted  upon  the  fancy, 
there  must  be  bright  copper  casseroles  in  the  kitchen, 
maids  in  short  skirts,  a  dance  under  the  trees,  peasant 
hats  and  sashes,  a  tame  lamb  in  ribbons,  pictures  by 
Watelet  in  the  salon,  —  all  which  is  met  and  enjoyed 
as  they  sit  out  a  play  tit  the  theatre,  which  being  over, 
—  "  allons  done  !  "  —  they  flock  home  to  the  city. 

A  great  Frenchman  will  sometimes  go  to  the  coun- 
try to  die,  but  never  to  live.  Voltaire  would  have  been 
miserable  at  Ferney  without  his  little  court  of  admirers 
trailing  out  from  Geneva ;  he  planted  himself  there  on 
the  verge  of  two  States  only  that  he  might  escape  the 
possible  persecution  of  either ;  he  contrived  his  chateau 
for  the  best  housing  of  his  adulators  and  of  his  gilt 
coach,  rather  than  for  any  views  it  might  give  of  Lake 
Leman  and  Mont  Blanc :  his  favorite  walk  was  a  ber- 
ceau  -  avenue  of  clipped  hornbeams,  still  vigorous  in 
their  ugliness,  and  allowing  only  rare  glimpses  of  the 
wonderful  vision  of  lake  and  mountain  toward  Geneva. 


FRENCH  RURALISMS.  117 

J  am  sure  that  he  loved  the  patter  of  the  little  feet  of 
his  feminine  idolaters  upon  the  gravel-path  better  than 
any  bird-song,  or  any  echo  of  thunder  from  the  wooded 
heights  of  the  Jura.  There  is  no  trace  of  natural 
scenery  in  the  "  Henriade  "  ;  and  as  for  the  "  Pucelle," 
there  is  not  in  all  its  weary  length  so  much  as  a  fig-leaf 
'to  cover  its  indecencies. 

If'  he  plants  the  borders  of  his  fields,  it  is  with  a  view 
to  revenue  ;  his  keen  eye  never  lost  sight  of  that  He 
ridicules  a  French  author  who  had  talked  of  a  gain  in 
agriculture  of  one  hundred  per  cent :  "  five  hundred," 
says  Voltaire,  "  would  not  be  too  much " ;  and  then, 
with  a  sardonic  grin,  —  "  Heureux  Parisiens,  jouissez 
de  nos  travaux,  et  jugez  de  F  Opera  Comique  !  " 

He  speaks  on  one  occasion  of  the  restoration  of 
sterile  lands,  and  says  the  only  feasible  way  is  "  to  trans- 
port good  earth  to  them  ;  this,  repeated  year  after  year, 
added  to  manure,  may  make  them  fertile  " ;  and  he  adds, 
"  none  but  a  rich  man  could  undertake  this,"  —  an  ob- 
servation which  is  entirely  sound. 

Again  he  says  if  cavalry  are  camped  on  such  ground 
a  sufficient  length  of  time,  it  may  be  redeemed.*  The 
English  indeed  hurdle  sheep  for  purposes  of  fertiliza- 
tion, but  could  any  save  a  Frenchman  ever  have  sug- 
gested the  idea  of  hurdling  a  squadron  of  cavalry  ? 

*  He  adds  to  this  extraordinary  suggestion  a  no  less  extraordinary 
comment,  — "  Cetle  dcpense  tefesant  dans  le  royaume,  il  n'y  aurait  /j'.n 
wn  denier  deptrdu." 


118  WET  DAYS. 

If  any  ripe  outburst  of  rural  feeling  were  to  be 
counted  upon  for  a  surety  in  any  of  the  older  French 
authors,  one  might,  it  would  seem,  reasonably  look  for  it 
in  the  books  of  the  many-sided,  jovial,  philosophic,  in- 
dolent Montaigne.  He  was  born  and  lived  in  Gascony, 
with  a  fine,  flowing  landscape  under  his  eye ;  he  hated 
cities  ;  he  hated  crowds ;  he  hated  politics ;  he  hated 
war.  He  travelled  widely  and  wherever  his  humor  led 
him  ;  his  eye  was  as  keen  as  a  falcon's ;  he  reported 
upon  all  possible  relations  of  man  to  man ;  he  wrote  of 
Fear,  and  Custom,  and  Death,  and  Idleness,  and  Can- 
nibals, and  I  know  not  what  besides :  but  of  trees  or 
rivers  or  vineyards  or  mountains  he  is  as  silent  as  if  he 
had  never  seen  them. 

He  neither  wishes  to  build,  nor  loves  field-sports  nor 
gardens,  nor  "  other  such  pleasures  "  *  of  a  country-life. 
He  has  no  special  attachment  for  his  paternal  castle : 
"  If  I  feared  much  to  die  away  from  it,"  he  says,  "  I 
should  never  go  abroad  ;  for  I  feel  death  always  press- 
ing at  my  reins.  It  is  all  one  to  me  where  I  die.  If  I 
could  choose,  I  think  it  would  be  rather  on  horseback 
than  in  my  bed." 

Boileau,  whose  name  —  Despreaux  —  is  suggestive 
of  the  meadows,  is  utterly  incapable  of  any  touch  that 
quickens  one's  memory  of  either  fields  or  stream.  He 

*  "  N'y  ce  plaisir  de  bastir,  qu'on  dit  estre  si  attrayant,  n'y  la 
chassu,  n'y  les  jardins,  n'y  ces  autres  plaisirs  de  la  vie  retiree,  no  me 
peuvent  beaucoup  amuaer.''  —  I,iv.  III.  cap.  9. 


FRENCH  R  URALISMS.  1 1 9 

wrote,  indeed,  a  poetic  epistle  to  his  gardener,  (XI.)  ; 
but  with  the  substitution  of  a  curry-comb  for  the  spade, 
it  might  have  been  addressed  to  his  hostler.  The  epis- 
tle may  very  likely  have  been  suggested  by  one  of 
Horace,  Ad  Suum  Villicum  ;  but  they  are  widely  un- 
like. Under  all  of  the  Roman  poet's  pleasant  banter 
of  his  bailiff,  you  see  a  yearning  for  the  freshness  and 
freedom  of  his  farm-life.  He  admits  his  old  dissipation 
and  the  long  nights  he  has  made  of  it  with  the  "  covet- 
ous Cynara  " ;  but  now  he  only  asks  short  suppers,  and 
long  sleep  on  some  grassy  river-bank,  — 

"  Cena  brevis  juvat,  et  prope  rivtun  somnus  in  herba." 
Boileau,  on  the  other  hand,  has  no  loves  to  confess,  but 
muddles  and  confounds  his  gardener  with  a  story  of 
the  immense  strain  upon  the  mind   which   his   poetic 
labors  involve. 

Madame  de  Sevigne  wrote  most  charmingly  ;  and  one 
would  have  supposed  that  on  her  visits  to  her  old  and 
beautiful  home  in  Brittany  her  epistles  would  have 
caught  something  of  the  color  of  the  country,  and 
that  she  would  delight  in  conveying  to  her  daughter  in 
Provence  glimpses  of  the  Breton  peasants,  and  some  of 
the  perfume  of  the  Breton  gardens  and  of  the  Breton 
pine  woods  :  but  no ;  her  letters  from  her  chateau  of 
Les  Rochers  are  as  flashingly  Parisian  and  as  salon- 
bound  as  if  they  had  been  written  under  the  shadow 
of  Notre  Dame.  Lady  Wortley  Montagu  would  have 


120  WET  DAYS. 

written  a  different  style  of  letter  from  a  country-house 
in  Brittany  ;  but — que  voulez-vous? — the  Sevigne  was  a 
Frenchwoman. 

Felton  in  his  "  Portraits,"  *  a  pleasant,  but  slipshod 
book,  takes  occasion  in  his  opening  chapter  to  claim 
both  Sevigne  and  Boileau  as  intense  lovers  of  garden- 
ing, of  which  he  says  their  writings  give  proof.  I  can- 
not find  the  evidence.  The  Lamoignon  letter  of  Boi- 
leau (Epist  VI.)  has  no  unction  in  its  rural  allusions ; 
its  peasant  cottages  are  dug  out  of  a  cliff  of  sandstone, 
and  the  poet  regales  himself  with  the  delights  of  Au- 
teuil  chiefly  because  he  escapes  there  the  abusive  talk 
of  the  city.  Mme.  Sevigne's  warmest  picture  of  a  gar- 
den is  of  one  where  she  passed  an  evening,  at  the 
Hotel  de  Conde,  (16th  July,  1677):  — "There  were 
iets-d'eaux,  cabinets,  terraced  walks,  six  hauibois  in 
one  corner,  six  violins  in  another,  a  little  nearer  six 
delightful  flutes,  a  supper  that  appeared  by  enchant- 
ment, an  admirable  bass-viol,  and  over  all  —  the  moon- 
light" A  true  French  garden ! 

Boileau  made  pretensions,  it  is  true,  in  his  Lamoignon 
epistle ;  but  Bossuet  was  honester,  —  so  honest  that  his 
gardener  said  to  him, "  Si  je  plantais  des  St.  Augus- 
tins  et  des  St.  Chrysostomes,  vous  les  viendriez  voir ; 
mais  pour  vos  arbres,  vous  ne  vous  en  souciez  guere." 

*  On  the  Portraitt  of  English  Authori  on  Gardening.  By  S.  Felton. 
London,  1830.  8vo. 


FRENCH  RURAL1SMS.  121 

If  Rousseau  be  any  exception  to  what  I  have  said,  he 
is  at  the  least  a  Swiss  exception.  An  exceptional  man, 
indeed,  he  was  in  every  way, -7- so  full  of  genius,  so 
imbrutsd  by  vanity,  so  ignobly  selfish,  so  masterful  in 
the  inthralment  of  all  sensitive  minds  by  the  binding, 
glittering  meshes  of  his  talk.  Keenly  apprehensive 
of  beauty,  whatever  form  it  might  take,  this  man  must 
have  enjoyed  the  garden-experience  near  to  Chambery, 
under  the  tutelage  of  Mine.  Warens ;  yet  he  tells  us 
very  little  about  it.  The  lady  was  disposed  to  be  a  far- 
meress ;  but  Jean  Jacques  was  looking  at  the  heavens, 
or  busying  himself  with  vain  study  of  music.  He  had 
no  practical  talent,  except  for  language.  In  his  "  Re- 
veries du  Promeneur  Solitaire"  there  are  scattered 
little  bits  of  rurality,  quickened  by  his  botanizing ;  I 
may  specially  designate  his  descriptions  of  scenes  upon 
the  isle  of  St.  Pierre,  in  the  Lake  of  Brienne.  And  in 
the  "  Nouvelle  Heloise  "  (Part  4,  Let.  XI.)  there  is  a 
most  charming  picture  of  a  garden-wilderness,  which 
those  gentlemen  who  have  lands  upon  their  hand,  and 
who  are  fettered  by  the  ordinary  rules  of  the  gardeners, 
might  read  to  their  profit.  It  is  a  sweet  sylvan  tangle 
of  beauties,  amid  which  birds  are  singing  and  rills  are 
flowing.  I  will  not  venture  upon  any  translation.* 

*  "  Dans  les  lieux  plus  dc'couverts  jc  voyais  ?ii  ct  la,  sans  ordre  ct 
tans  symi'trie,  des  broussailles  de  roses,  de  t'ramboisiers,  de  groseilles, 
des  fourrts  de  lilas,  de  noisetier,  de  sureau,  de  seringat,  de  genet,  de 
trifolimn,  qui  paraient  la  terre  en  lui  dounant  1'uir  d'etre  en  friche. 


122  WET  DAYS. 

In  his  "  Confessions  "  he  says,  —  "  It  was  in  the  midst 
of  the  Park  of  Montmorenci,  in  that  profound  and 
delicious  solitude,  with  woods  around  me,  and  waters, 
and  the  songs  of  all  birds,  and  the  perfume  of  orange- 
blossoms,  that  I  composed,  in  a  continued  ecstasy,  the 
fifth  book  of  •  Emile ' ;  and  its  fresh  coloring  is  due  in  a 
large  degree  to  the  locality  where  I  wrote." 

It  is  a  frank  admission  from  one  in  whom  frank- 
ness was  perhaps  the  largest  virtue.  In  that  same 
fifth  book  there  is  a  pleasant  picture  of  Emile  teach- 
ing the  peasantry ;  by  way  of  diversion  he  shows  them 
how  to  make  a  new  sort  of  farm-wagon,  and  he  surprises 
them  all  by  taking  in  hand  the  plough  and  laying  a 
straighter  furrow  than  any  of  them  could  do.  Where- 
upon Rousseau  says,  (and  I  have  heard  kindred  talk  in 
the  mouths  of  my  neighbors,)  —  "  Us  ne  se  moquent  pas 

Je  suivais  des  allies  tortueuses  ct  irr<?gulieres  bord^es  de  ces  bocages 
fleuris,  et  couvertes  de  mille  guirlandes  de  vigne  de  Jud£e,  de  vigne- 
vierge,  de  houblon,  de  liseron,  de  couleuvrt'e,  de  cU'matite,  et  d'autres 
plantes  de  cette  espece,  parrni  lesquelles  le  chevre-feuille  et  le  jasmin 
daignaient  se  confondre.  Ces  guirlandes  semblaient  jettes  negligeni- 
:nent  d'un  arbre  a  1'autre,  comme  j'en  avais  remarque  quelquefois 
dans  les  forets,  et  formaient  sur  nous  des  especes  de  draperies  qui  nous 
garantissaient  du  soleil,  tandis  que  nous  avions  sous  nos  pieds  un  mar- 
cher doux,  commode,  ct  sec,  sur  une  mousse  fine,  sans  sable,  sans  her'oe, 
et  sans  rejetons  rabotenx.  Alors  seulement  je  dt'couvrais,  non  sans 
surprise,  que  ces  ombragcs  verds  et  touft'us,  qui  m'en  avaient  tant  im- 
pose de  loin,  n'i'taient  formes  que  de  ces  plantes  rampantes  et  parasites, 
qui,  guid^es  le  long  des  arbres,  environnaient  leur  tetes  du  plus  t'pnis 
feuillage,  et  leurs  pieds  d'ombre  et  de  fraicheur."  I  give  a  glimpse 
onlj'  at  a  scene  which  fills  four  full  \  ages  of  Rousseau's  best  descrip- 
tive language. 


FRENCH  RURALISMS.  123 

de  lui  comme  d  'un  beau  diseur  d'agriculture ;  Us  voient 
qu'il  la  sait  en  effet." 

I  do  not  think  it  could  ever  have  been  said  of  Rous- 
seau. I  can  hardly  imagine  a  man  more  poorly  quali- 
fied for  the  masculine  employments  that  belong  to  a 
continued  and  devoted  country  -  life.  His  period  of 
novitiate  at  the  Chaumettes,  where  he  lived  in  the 
silken  leash  of  Mme.  Warens,  was  no  test  His  bota- 
nizing was  a  casual  habit ;  and  throughout  all  his  seclu- 
sion, he  was  more  occupied  with  the  wonders  of  his  own 
brain  and  his  own  passions,  than  with  the  wonders  of 
Nature.  Yet  he  painted  Nature  well,  and  wantoned 
in  his  power;  but  his  power  was  dearer  to  him  than 
his  subject  He  never  loved  the  forest,  as  Bernardin 
de  St  Pierre  loved  the  lusty  verdure  of  the  tropics. 

This  latter,  —  Frenchman  though  he  was,  —  when  so 
poor  that  he  could  command  only  a  garret  in  the  fau- 
bourg, equipped  his  little  window  always  with  a  pot  of 
flowers  ;  and  in  "  Paul  and  Virginia  "  he  left  a  bouquet 
whose  perfume  is  dear  to  all  boys  and  girls,  even  now. 

Of  the  hundred  and  odd  plays  of  Saintine  we  re- 
member, and  care  to  remember,  nothing  ;  but  his  Pic- 
ciola,  struggling  through  the  crevice  of  a  prison-pave- 
ment, has,  under  his  love  and  art,  made  its  tender 
leaflets  to  flutter  winningly  in  the  eyes  of  all  the 
world. 


124  WET  DAYS. 

A  Minnesinger. 

THE  clouds  are  breaking.  I  began  my  day  among 
the  Troubadours;  why  not  close  it  with  a  blithe 
song  of  a  "  Minnesinger "  ?  It  is  full  of  the  forest- 
freshness  of  the  North ;  there  is  in  it  no  Southern  clang 
of  battle.  It  clears  the  air ;  it  mocks  at  gloom ;  it 
beckons  to  a  ramble  upon  the  green  shores  of  England. 

w  May,  sweet  May,  again  is  come,  — 
May,  that  frees  the  land  from  gloom. 
Children,  children,  up  and  see 
All  her  stores  of  jollity ! 
O'er  the  laughing  hedge-rows'  side 
She  hath  spread  her  treasures  wide; 
She  is  in  the  greenwood  shade, 
Where  the  nightingale  hath  made 
Even*  branch  and  even'  tree 
King  with  her  sweet  melody: 
Hill  and  dale  are  May's  own  treasures, 
Youth,  rejoice  in  sportive  measures; 

Sing  ye !  join  the  chorus  gay ! 

Hail  this  merry,  merry  May ! 

"  Up,  then,  children,  we  will  go 
Where  the  blooming  roses  grow; 
In  a  joyful  company 
We  the  bursting  flowers  will  see; 
Up !  your  festal  dress  prepare ! 
Where  gay  hearts  are  meeting,  there 
May  hath  pleasures  most  inviting, 
Heart  and  sight  and  ear  delighting: 


A  MINNESINGER.  125 

Listen  to  the  birds'  sweet  song, 
Hark!  how  soft  it  floats  along! 
Courtly  dames  our  pleasures  share, 
Never  saw  I  May  so  fair; 
Therefore  dancing  will  we  go; 
Youths,  rejoice,  the  flowrets  blow; 

Sing  ye !  join  the  chorus  gay ! 

Hail  this  mem-,  merry -May!  "  * 

*  Attributed  to  Earl  Conrad  of  Kirchbcrg,  and  cited  by  Roscoc  in 
his  notes  to  Sismoiidi's  Literature  of  £uivpe. 


FOURTH  DAY. 


Piers  Plowman. 

A  SMART  little  couplet  of  volumes  from  Soho 
-£^-  Square,  London,  bears  me  away  from  the  murky 
November  sky  that  confronts  me  out-of-doors,  to 

"  a  May  monvenynge 
On  Malverne  hilles."  * 

And  there  Piers  Plowman  shall  lay  open  for  me  the 
first  farm-furrow  upon  English  soil.  For  want  of  bet- 
ter, we  may  count  him  the  type  of  a  British  farmer 
in  the  reign  of  Edward  III.,  —  those  famous  days  of 
Crecy  and  of  Poictiers.  It  is  true  that  the  allusions  to 
field-culture  in  the  book  are  only  incidental ;  but  it  is 
something  that  the  author  of  the  old  verse  made  a 
ploughman  his  preacher,  by  which  we  may  infer  that  the 
craft  was  held  in  respect  by  the  people ;  there  are  also 
certain  indications  of  the  modes  of  country-life  and  of 
farm-fare  which  I  hope  to  bring  into  view. 

*  Tlie  Vifion  and  Creed  of  Piers  Plowman :  (edited  by  Thomas 
Wright:)  an  allegorical  poem  of  about  the  middle  of  the  fourteenth 
century,  by  Langlande  (?)  an  English  monk. 


PIERS  PLOWMAN.  127 

Piers  one  day  falls  asleep  on  Malvern  Hills,  and  has 
a  vision.  The  whole  world  is  gathered  in  a  meadow. 
Piers  looks  on  at  King,  knights,  ladies,  and  hirelings,  and 
sees  by-and-by  Lady  Church  come  among  them  with 
her  godly  talk ;  but  Lady  Mammon  (Mede)  finds  more 
listeners,  and,  at  the  instigation  of  the  lawyers,  a  mar- 
riage is  set  on  foot  between  Mammon  and  Falsehood. 
Conscience  breaks  up  the  match,  whereupon  the  King, 
who  has  a  regard  for  Mammon,  advises  that  she  marry 
Conscience.  But  Conscience  objects  that  the  lady's  rep- 
utation is  bad ;  whereat  they  fall  into  a  wrangle,  and  the 
King  commands  them  to  kiss  and  be  friends.  Conscience 
says  he  "  would  die  first,"  and  appeals  to  Reason,  who 
comes  and  brings  Peace.  This  delights  the  King,  and 
Reason  is  in  great  favor  and  commences  preaching ;  and 
the  "  field  full  of  folk,"  all  listening,  want  to  find  their 
way  to  the  Tower  of  Truth.  But  they  boggle  on  the 
road.  Piers  Plowman  knows  it,  and  says  if  they  will 
wait  till  he  has  ploughed  a  half-acre  on  the  highway, 
he  will  guide  them. 

"  Now  is  Perkyn  and  his  pilgrim* 
To  the  plow  faren: 
Dikers  and  delvers 
Digged  up  the  ridges : 
Other  workmen  there  were 
That  wroughten  full  well ; 

*  I  have  ventured  to  modernize  the  language  somewhat,  though 
preserving  so  far  as  possible  the  peculiar  alliterative  construction,  and 
the  rhythm. 


128  WET  DAYS. 

Each  man  in  his  manner 
Made  up  his  task, 
And  some  to  please  Perkyn 
Piked  up  the  weeds. 
At  high  prime  Piers 
Let  the  plow  stand 
To  oversee  for  himself, 
"U'hoso  hud  best  wrought, 
And  whom  he  should  hire 
When  harvesting  came. 
And  some  were  a-sitting 
A-singing  at  the  ale, 
Helping  till  the  half  land 
With '  High,  trolly-lolly  ! '  " 

And  Piers  swears  at  them,  —  as  later  farmers  have 
done,  —  "  by  the  peril  of  his  soul."  But  the  lazy  folk  are 
full  of  all  manner  of  excuses,  to  which  Piers  will  not 
listen,  but  berates  them  the  more.  Whereat  one  called 
the  "Waster"  grows  wrathy,  and  bids  Perkyn  "'go 
hang '  with  his  plow." 

"  Will  you  or  won't  you, 
We  'II  have  our  will 
Of  your  flour  and  your  flesh, 
Fish  when  we  like ; 
And  make  mem-  therewith, 
Manger  your  chucks." 

Piers  in  a  stout  passion  summons  Hunger  to  his  aid, 
who  straightway  pinches  Waster  by  the  stomach  till 
his  eyes  water,  ("  botJte  Jdse  eiyhen  watrede")  and  buffets 
him  about  the  cheeks  so  that  he  looked  like  a  lantern 


PIERS  PLOWMAN.  129 

"  all  his  life  after."  At  this  all  his  brother-sluggards 
rushed  into  the  barn,  and  "  flapped  on  with  flails  "  from 
morning  till  night. 

The  Plowman  prays  Hunger,  who  has  served  him 
so  good  a  turn,  to  go  home  with  him ;  and  Hunger  dis- 
courses on  the  way  from  Bible  texts,  improvingly,  coun- 
selling moderation  in  eating  and  drinking,  and  giving  a 
pleasant  rap  at  the  doctors :  — 

"  For  murderous  arc  many  Leeches 
Lord,  amend  their  ways ! 
With  all  their  drugs,  the}-  bring  men  death 
Ere  Destiny  would  do  't." 

At  last  Piers  asks  Hunger  to  leave  him ;  but  Hunger 
must  have  his  dinner  before  he  goes,  and  this  gives  us 
a  hint  of  farmers'  fare  in  1370  :  — 

"  I  have  no  penny,  quoth  Piers 
Pullets  to  buy ; 
I  have  no  geese  nor  grunters, 
But  green  cheeses  two, 
A  few  small  curds  and  cream, 
Cake  of  oaten  meal, 
I  have  two  loaves  of  bean  and  bran 
Bakt'd  for  my  folk, 
And  I  have  parseley  and  porettcs, 
And  plants  cno'  of  cole, 
And  eke  a  cow  and  a  calf, 
And  a  cart  mare 
To  draw  a-field  my  dung, 
Tha  while  the  drought  lastetfc." 


130  WET  DAYS. 

The  Farmer  of  Chaucer's  Time. 

SITTING  thus,  with  the  poem  of  Piers  Plowman 
in  my  hand,  and  the  dashing  Lady  Mede  making 
rainbows  in  my  thought,  (as  she  does  for  us  poor  mor- 
tals alway,)  I  wonder  what  a  country-life  would  have 
been  in  those  royal  days  of  England  which  just  pre- 
ceded the  bloody  times  of  the  "  Roses,"  —  when  the 
gallantry  of  the  Black  Prince  was  a  toast  with  gallant 
men  everywhere, — when  the  Gloucestershire  monks 
made  the  "  touchingest "  wine  in  England,  —  when 
Venetian  ships  brought  silks  for  wives  who  could  wear 
them,  —  when  ploughmen  wore  serge  and  blankets,  and 
drank  the  "  nattiest "  of  ale,  —  and  when  Chaucer 
made  tales  like  honey. 

I  suppose  that  a  country  -  gentleman  of  moderate 
means  in  those  times  would  have  lived  in  a  cumbrous, 
low  house,  built  of  oaken  timber  filled  in  with  mortar, 
or  flint  stones,  (if  they  were  near  him,)  with  a  great  hall 
for  its  principal  apartment,  hung  around  with  flitches 
of  venison,  and  with  a  rude  chimney-place  where  half 
a  sheep  was  roasted  at  a  time  upon  a  wooden  spit 

I  suppose  that  he  would  have  taught  his  boys  prac- 
tice with  the  strong-bow,  and  that  his  girls  would  tease 
him  for  some  bit  of  jewelry  brought  over  by  the 
Genoese  ships.  I  am  sure  that  wheaten  bread  was  a 
rarity,  and  that  his  hirelings  got  only  that  made  from 


THE  FARMER  OF  CHAUCER'S  TIME.         131 

barley,  or,  what  was  cheaper,  peas  and  beans.  I  suspect 
a  cask  of  ale  was  always  on  tap,  and  that  the  fanner 
was  sometimes  drunken  —  of  the  forenoon.  If  he 
lived  in  Cornwall,  he  would  send  his  "  doung  carts  "  to 
the  shore  for  sea-sand  to  dress  his  wheat-crop ;  and  if 
he  were  near  some  monastery,  the  monks  might  send 
him  now  and  then  a  stoop  of  their  wine,  or  come  from 
time  to  time  to  read  to  his  women-folk,  out  of  Piers 
Plowman,  (if  they  were  radical,)  or  out  of  Chaucer, 
(if  they  were  conservative) ;  but  I  suspect  that  the 
country-gentleman  would  listen  to  neither,  —  leaving 
that  bit  of  hospitality  to  the  girls,  —  and  would  fall 
asleep  upon  his  oaken  settle,  and  dream,  and  make 
sounds  through  his  nose,  — 

"  As  though  he  saidest  aj-c  —  Sampsoun !  Sampsoun !  " 

He  must  have  had  great  stock  of  colewort  and 
parsley  and  leeks  *  in  his  garden,  and,  if  an  epicure, 
may  have  boasted  a  bed  of  cucumbers.  He  would 
have  a  drove  of  hogs,  of  course,  which  wandered  very 
much  where  it  willed,  under  the  guidance  of  some 
hireling,  who,  if  he  had  dropped  the  neck-collar  of 
Wamba,  wore  a  jerkin  every  way  as  rough,  a  staff 
with  a  sharp  pike  in  its  end,  and  his  hair  "  yshorne 
round  by  his  eres." 

*  Hume  says  it  -was  not  until  the  end  of  the  reign  of  Henry  VIII. 
that  any  "  edible  roots"  were  produced  in  England;  but  this  is  abun. 
dau'.I y  disproved  by  Piers  Plowman's  talk. 


132  WET  DAYS. 

And  if  such  a  country-gentleman  boasted  a  bailiff 
to  oversee  his  farm-lands,  he  was  very  likely  such 
another  as  Chaucer  has  painted  in  the  Reve :  — 

"a  slendre  colerike  man, 
His  benl  was  shave  as  nigh  as  ever  he  can. 
Ful  long  were  his  legges,  and  ful  lene, 
Ylike  a  staff  there  was  no  calf  ysenc. 
Wei  coulde  he  kape  a  garner  and  a  binne; 
There  was  not  audituur  coude  on  him  winne. 
Wei  wiste  he  by  the  drought  and  by  the  rain, 
The  yelding  of  his  seed  and  of  his  grain." 

Of  all  things,  such  a  landholder  must  have  dreaded 
most  the  visit  of  some  distinguished  dignitary  of  the 
Church,  who  travelled  with  some  four  hundred  in  his 
train,  treading  down  all  his  grain-crops,  and  his  home- 
close,  robbing  his  larder,  and  killing  off  the  fattest  of 
his  bucks  and  of  his  wethers  ;  and  whatever  promises 
an  archbishop  might  make  of  the  new  "graffes"  he 
would  send  him,  or  some  manuscript  copy  of  Crescenzi, 
or  of  Columella,  I  think  he  must  have  been  glad  to  see 
the  palfrey  of  his  Reverence  go  ambling  out  of  his  farm- 
yard.* The  farm -implements  of  such  a  landholder 
must  have  been  very  cumbrous ;  I  doubt  if  the  ploughs 
had  improved  much  upon  that  ill-shapen  affair  with  one 
wheel,  whose  picture  has  come  down  to  us  in  the  Cal- 

*  I  have  endeavored  to  make  this  portrait  historically  true,  and 
am  indebted  for  ils  several  particulars  to  Malmesbr.ry,  Langlande, 
Chaucer,  Mat  hew  Paris,  Ilolinshcd,  Latinier,  and  Macphersan's  "An- 
nuls of  Commerce." 


THE  FARMER  OF  CHAUCER'S  TIME.        133 

cndar  of  the  Cotton  MSS.*  Quick-witted  men,  even 
if  they  were  dwellers  in  the  country,  took  more  pride  in 
a  good  pack  of  hounds  than  in  a  good  array' of  farm- 
tools  ;  and  we  inherit  much  of  the  same  barbarism  in 
these  clays,  when  some  runt  of  a  fast  trotter  is  sure  to 
carry  away  all  the  honors  and  all  the  applause  from  our 
best  cattle-shows. 

I  do  not  suppose  that  a  British  farmer  of  the  four- 
teenth century  would  have  cared  much  for  gardening, 
beyond  his  patch  of  colewort,  parsley,  and  onions ;  and 
the  larger  landholders,  who  boasted  baronial  titles,  would 
hardly  have  ventured  to  place  any  rare  things  of  fruit 
or  flower  outside  their  battlemented  walls  or  moat 
The  priors  and  the  abbots  were  the  men  most  success- 
ful with  the  vinej-ards  and  orcharding :  they  reaped  the 
good  things  of  life  in  those  days :  town-boys  did  not 
venture  over  the  walls  of  a  priory  to  steal  pippins  ;  and 
in  the  herbary  of  the  "  Nonnes  Priestes  Tale  "  there  is 
enumeration  of  such  a  stock  of  herbs  that  the  very  read- 
ing of  it  is  savory  with  tincture  of  rhubarb. 

Henry  I.  long  before  this  had  his  park  and  his  laby- 
rinth at  Woodstock,  of  which  the  deepest  trace  left  is 
the  tragic  memory  of  Fair  Rosamond.  And  if  parks, 
then  surely  flowers,  —  if  not  in  gardens,  at  least  in  the 
pages  of  the  poets,  where  henceforth  I  may  gather 
them  as  I  list,  to  garnish  this  wet-day  talk.  At  the 

*  Strutt. 


134  WET  DAYS. 

bare  thought  of  them,  I  seem  to  hear  the  royal  cap- 
tive James  pouring  madrigals  through  .the  window  of  his 
Windsor  prison,  — 

41  the  hymnis  consecrat 
Of  lovis  use,  now  soft,  now  loud  among, 
That  all  the  gardens  and  the  wallis  rung." 

And  through  the  "  Dreme  "  of  Chaucer  I  seem  to  see 
the  great  plain  of  Woodstock  stretching  away  under 
my  view,  all  white  and  green,  —  "green  y-powdered 
with  daisy."  Upon  the  half-ploughed  land,  lying  yonder 
veiled  so  tenderly  with  the  mist  and  the  rain,  I  could 
take  oath  to  the  very  spot  where  five  hundred  years 
ago  the  ploughman  of  Chaucer,  all  "  forswat," 

"  plucked  up  his  plowe 
Whan  midsomer  nione  was  comen  in 
And  shoke  off  shear,  and  coulter  offdrowe,  , 
And  honged  his  harnis  on  a  pinne, 
And  said  his  beasts  should  etc  enowc 
And  lie  in  grasse  up  to  the  chin." 

With  due  respect  for  the  poet,  it  would  be  bad  hus- 
bandry to  allow  cattle  steaming  from  the  plough  to  lie 
dx)wn  in  grass  of  that  height. 

Sir  Anthony  Fitz-herbert. 

QUR  ANTHONY  FITZ-HERBERT,  who  died  in 
^  1538,  is  the  first  duly  accredited  writer  on  British 
husbandry.  There  are  some  few  earlier  ones,  it  is  true, 


SIR  ANTHONY  FITZ-IIERBERT.  135 

—  a  certain  "  Mayster  Groshede,  Bysshop  of  Lyncoln," 
and  a  Henri  Calcoensis,  among  them.  Indeed,  Mr. 
Donaldson,  who  has  compiled  a  bibliography  of  Brit- 
ish farm-writers,  and  who  once  threatened  a  poem  on 
kindred  subjects,  has  the  effrontery  to  include  Lord 
Littleton.  I  have  a  respect  for  Lord  Littleton,  and  for 
Coke  on  Littleton,  but  it  is  tempered  with  some  early 
experiences  in  a  lawyer's  office,  and  some  later  experi- 
ences of  the  legal  profession ;  and  however  well  he 
may  have  written  upon  "  Tenures,"  I  do  not  feel  dis- 
posed to  admit  him  to  the  present  galaxy. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark,  in  view  of  the  mixed  com- 
plexion which  I  have  given  to  these  wet-day  studies, 
that  the  oldest  printed  copy  of  that  sweet  ballad  of  the 
"  Nut  Browne  Mayde  "  has  come  to  us  in  a  Chronicle  of 
1503,  which  contains  also  a  chapter  upon  "  the  crafte 
of  graffynge  &  plantynge  &  alterynge  of  fruyts."  What 
could  be  happier  than  the  conjunction  of  the  knight  of 
"  the  grenwode  tree  "  with  a  good  chapter  on  "  graf- 
fynge "  ? 

Fitz-herbert's  work  is  entitled  a  "  Boke  of  Husband- 
rie,"  and  counts,  among  other  headings  of  discourse, 
the  following :  — 

"  Whether  is  better  a  plough  of  horses  or  a  plough 
of  oxen." 

"  To  cary  out  dounge  &  mucke,  &  to  spreadc  it" 

"  The  fyrste  furryng  of  the  falowes." 


136  WET  DAYS. 

"  To  make  a  ewe  to  love  hir  lambe." 
"  To  bye  lean  cattel." 

"  A  shorte  information  for  a  young  gentyleman  that 
entendeth  to  thryve." 

"  What  the  wyfe  oughte  to  dooe  generally." 
(seq.)  "  To  kepe  measure  in  spendynge." 
"  What  be  God's  commandments." 
"  What  joyes  &  pleasures  are  in  heaven." 
"  A  meane  to  put  away  ydle  thoughts  in  praing." 
At  the  close  of  his  book  he  says,  — "  Thus  endeth 
the  ryghte  profytable  Boke  of  Husbandrye,  compyled 
sometyme  by  Mayster   Fitzherbarde,  of  charitee   and 
good  zele  that  he  have  to  the  weale  of  this  most  noble 
realme,  which  he  did  not  in  his  youth,  but  after   he 
had  exercised  husbandrye,  with  greate  experience,  forty 
years." 

By  all  this  it  may  be  seen  that  Sir  Anthony  took  as 
broad  a  view  of  husbandry  as  did  Xenophon. 

Among  other  advices  to  the  "  young  gentyleman  that 
entendeth  to  thryve  "  he  counsels  him  to  rise  betime  in 
the  morning,  and  if  "  he  fynde  any  horses,  mai-es,  swyne, 
shepe,  beastes  in  his  pastures  that  be  not  his  own ;  or 
fynde  a  gap  in  his  hedge,  or  any  water  standynge  in  his 
pasture  uppon  his  grasse,  whereby  he  may  take  double 
herte,  bothe  losse  of  his  grasse,  &  rotting  of  his  shepe, 
(pc  calves ;  or  if  he  fyndeth  or  seeth  anything  that  is 
ainisse,  &  wold  be  amended,  let  him  take  out  hl>  tables 


SIR  ANTI10SY  FITZ-HERDERT.  137 

&  wryte  the  defautes ;  &  when  he  commeth  home  to 
dinner,  supper,  or  at  nyght,  then  let  him  call  his  bayley, 
&  soo  shewe  him  the  defautes.  For  this,"  says  he, 
"  used  I  to  doo  x  or  xi  yeres  or  more  ;  &  yf  he  cannot 
wryte,  lette  him  nycke  the  defautes  nppon  a  stycke." 

Sir  Anthony  is  gracious  to  the  wife,  but  he  is  not 
lender ;  and  it  may  be  encouraging  to  country-house- 
wives nowadays  to  see  what  service  was  expected  of 
their  mothers  in  the  days  of  Henry  VIII. 

"It  is  a  wives  occupacion  to  winow  al  maner  of 
comes,  to  make  make,  wash  &  wring,  to  make  hey,  to 
shcrc  corne,  &  in  time  of  neede  to  helpe  her  hnsbande 
to  fyll  the  mucke  wayne  or  donge  carte,  dryve  the 
plough,  to  lode  hay  corne  &  such  other.  Also  to  go  or 
ride  to  the  market  to  sell  butter,  chese,  mylke,  egges, 
chekens,  kapons,  hennes,  pygges,  gees  &  al  maner 
of  corne.  And  also  to  bye  al  maner  of  necessary 
thinges  belonging  to  a  household,  &  to  make  a  true 
rekening  &  accompt  to  her  husband  what  she  hath 
receyved  &  what  she  hathe  payed.  And  yf  the  husband 
go  to  market  to  bye  or  sell  as  they  ofte  do,  he  then  to 
shew  his  wife  in  lyke  maner.  For  if  one  of  them  should 
use  to  disceive  the  other,  he  disceyveth  himselfe,  &  he 
is  not  lyke  to  thryve,  &  therfore  they  must  be  true 
ether  to  other. 

"  I  could  peradventure  shew  the  husbande  of  divers 
pointes  that  the  wives  disceve  their  husbandcs  in,  & 


138  WET  DAYS. 

in  like  maner  howe  husbandes  disceve  their  wives.  But 
yf  I  should  do  so,  I  shuld  shew  mo  subtil  pointes  of 
disceite  then  either  of  them  knew  of  before ;  &  there- 
fore me  semeth  best  to  holde  my  peace." 

His  knowledge  on  these  latter  points  will  be  ex- 
plained when  I  say  that  this  old  agricultural  worthy 
was  also  a  lawyer  and  in  large  practice.  It  is  not  com- 
mon for  one  of  his  profession  to  discuss  "  What  be  God's 
commandments."  He  was  buried  where  he  was  born,  — 
upon  the  banks  of  the  River  Dove,  at  the  little  town  of 
Norbury  in  Derbyshire. 

Thomas  Tusser. 

T    COME   next    to    Master  Tusser,  —  poet,  fanner, 
-*-  chorister,  vagabond,  happily  dead  at  last,  and  with 
a  tomb  whereon  some  wag  wrote  this :  — 
"  Tusser,  they  tell  me,  when  thou  wert  alive, 
Thou  teaching  thrift,  thyself  could  never  thrive; 
So,  like  the  whetstone,  many  men  are  wont 
To  sharpen  others  when  themselves  are  blunt." 

I  cannot  help  considering  poor  Ttisser's  example  cue 
of  warning  to  all  poetically  inclined  farmers. 

He  was  born  at  a  little  village  in  the  County  of 
Essex.  Having  a  good  voice,  he  came  early  in  life  to 
be  installed  as  singer  at  "Wallingford  College ;  and 
showing  here  a  great  proficiency,  he  was  shortly  after 
impressed  for  the  choir  of  St  Paul's  Cathedral.  After- 


THOMAS  TUSSER.  139 

ward  he  was  for  some  time  at  Eton,  where  he  had  the 
ill-luck  to  receive  some  fifty-four  stripes  for  his  short- 
comings in  Latin ;  thence  he  goes  to  Trinity  College, 
Cambridge,  where  he  lives  "  in  clover."  It  appears 
that  he  had  some  connections  at  Court,  through  whose 
influence  he  was  induced  to  go  up  to  London,  where  he 
remained  some  ten  years,  —  possibly  as  singer,  —  but 
finally  left  in  great  disgust  at  the  vices  of  the  town,  and 
commenced  as  farmer  in  Suffolk,  — 

"  To  moil  and  to  toil 
With  loss  and  pain,  to  little  gain, 
To  cram  Sir  Knave  " ;  — 

from  which  I  fancy  that  he  had  a  hard  landlord,  and 
but  little  sturdy  resolution.  Thence  he  goes  to  Ips- 
wich, or  its  neighborhood,  with  n>'  belter  experience. 
Afterward  we  hear  of  him  with  a  second  wife  at  Dere- 
ham  Abbey  ;  but  his  wife  is  young  and  sharp-tempered, 
and  his  landlord  a  screw :  so  he  does  not  thrive  here, 
but  goes  to  Norwich  and  commences  chorister  again  ; 
but  presently  takes  another  farm  in  Fairstead,  Essex, 
where  it  would  seem  he  eked  out  a  support  by  collect- 
ing tithes  for  the  parson.  But  he  says,  — 

"  I  spyed,  if  parson  died, 
(All  hope  in  vain,)  to  hope  for  gain 
I  might  go  dance." 

Possibly  he  did  go  dance :  he  certainly  left  the  tithe- 
busiiaess,  and  after  settling  in  one  more  home,  froir 


140  WET  DAYS. 

which  he  ran  to  escape  the  plague,  we  find  him  return- 
ed to  London,  to  die,  —  where  he  was  buried  in  the 
Poultry. 

What  is  specially  remarkable  about  Tusser  is  his  air 
of  entire  resignation  amid  all  manner  of  vicissitudes : 
he  does  not  seem  to  count  his  hardships  either  wonder- 
ful or  intolerable  or  unmerited.  He  tells  us  of  the 
thrashing  he  had  at  Eton,  (fifty-four  licks,)  without 
greatly  impugning  the  head-master ;  and  his  shiftless- 
ness  in  life  makes  us  strongly  suspect  that  he  deserved 
it  all. 

There  are  good  points  in  his  poem,  showing  close 
observation,  good  sense,  and  excellent  judgment.  His 
rules  of  farm -practice  are  entirely  safe  and  judicious, 
and  make  one  wonder  how  the  man  who  could  give 
such  capital  advice  could  make  so  capital  a  failure.  In 
the  secret  lies  all  the  philosophy  of  the  difference  be- 
tween knowledge  and  practice.  The  instance  is  not 
without  its  modern  support :  I  have  the  honor  of  ac- 
quaintance with  several  gentlemen  who  lay  down 
charming  rules  for  successful  husbandry,  every  time 
they  pay  the  country  a  visit ;  and  yet  even  their  poultry- 
account  is  always  largely  against  the  constipated  hens. 

I  give  one  or  two  specimens  of  Tusser's  mode  of 
preachment ;  the  first  from  his  March's  husbandry :  — 

"  Sow  barley  in  March,  in  April,  and  May, 
The  later  in  sand,  and  the  sooner  in  day. 


THOMAS  TUSSER.  lil 

What  worser  for  barley  than  wetness  and  cold? 
What  better  to  skilful  than  time  to  be  bold? 

• 
"  Let  barley  be  harrowed  f. nely  as  dust, 

Then  workmanly  trench  it,  and  fence  it  ye  must. 

This  season  well  plied,  set  sowing  an  end, 

And  praise  and  pray  God  a  good  harvest  to  send. 

"  Some  rolleth  their  barley  straight  after  a  rain, 
When  first  it  appeareth,  to  level  it  plain; 
The  barley  so  used  the  better  doth  grow, 
And  handsome  ye  make  it,  at  harvest  to  mow. 

"At  spring  (for  the  summer)  sow  garden  ye  shall, 
At  harvest  (for  winter)  or  sow  not  nt  all. 
Oft  digging,  removing,  and  weeding,  ye  see, 
Makes  herb  the  more  wholesome  and  greater  to  be." 

Again  in  his  teaching  for  February  he  says,  very 
shrewdly :  — 

"  Who  slackelh  his  tillage  a  carter  to  be, 
For  groat  got  abroad,  at  home  lose  shall  three ; 
And  so  by  his  doing,  he  brings  out  of  heart 
Both  land  for  the  corn  and  horse  for  the  cart. 

"  Who  abuscth  his  cattle,  and  starves  them  for  meat, 
By  carting  or  ploughing  his  gain  is  not  great: 
Where  he  that  with  labor  can  use  them  aright, 
Hath  gain  to  his  comfort,  and  cattle  in  plight." 

Fuller,  in  his  "  Worthies,"  says  Tusser  "  spread  his 
bread  with  all  sorts  of  butter,  yet  none  would  stick 
thereon."  In  short,  though  the  poet  wrote  well  on 


112  WET  DAYS. 

farm-practice,  he  certainly  was  not  a  good  exemplar  of 
farm-successes.  With  all  his  excellent  notions  about 
sowing  and  reaping,  and  rising  with  the  lark,  I  should 
look  for  a  little  more  of  stirring  mettle  and  of  dogged 
resolution  in  a  man  to  be  recommended  as  a  tenant. 
I  cannot  help  thinking  less  of  him  as  a  farmer  than  as 
a  kind-hearted  poet ;  too  soft  of  the  edge  to  cut  very 
deeply  into  hard-pan,  and  too  porous  and  flimsy  of 
character  for  any  compacted  resolve :  yet  taking  life 
tenderly,  withal ;  good  to  those  poorer  than  himself 
making  a  rattling  appeal  for  Christmas  charities ;  hos- 
pitable, cheerful,  and  looking  always  to  the  end  with  an 
honest  clearness  of  vision  :  — 

"  To  death  we  must  stoop,  be  we  high,  be  we  low, 
But  how,  and  how  suddenly,  few  be  that  know ; 
What  carry  we,  then,  but  a  sheet  to  the  grave, 
(To  cover  this  carcass,)  of  all  that  we  have  V  " 


Sir  Hugh  Platt. 

SIR  HUGH  PLATT,  who  lived  in  the  latter  part  of 
the  sixteenth  century,  is  called  by  Mr.  Weston  in 
his  catalogue  of  English  authors,  "  the  most  ingenious 
husbandman  of  his  age."  He  is  elsewhere  described  as 
a  gentleman  of  Lincoln's  Inn,  who  had  two  estates  in 
the  country,  besides  a  garden  in  St.  Martin's  Lane.  He 
was  an  enthusiast  in  agricultural,  as  well  as  horticul- 


SIR  HUGH  PL  ATT.  143 

tural  inquiries,  corresponding  largely  with  leading 
farmers,  and  conducting  careful  experiments  within 
his  own  grounds.  In  speaking  of  that  "  rare  and  peer- 
less plant,  the  grape,"  he  insists  upon  the  wholesome- 
ness  of  the  wines  he  made  from  his  Bcdnall-Greene 
garden  :  "  And  if,"  he  says,  "  any  exception  shold  be 
taken  against  the  race  and  delicacie  of  them,  I  am 
content  to  submit  them  to  the  censure  of  the  best 
mouthes,  that  professe  any  true  skill  in  the  judgement 
of  high  country  wines :  although  for  their  better  credit 
herein,  I  could  bring  in  the  French  Ambassador,  who 
(now  almost  two  yeeres  since,  comming  to  my  house 
of  purpose  to  tast  these  wines)  gaue  this  sentence  upon 
them :  that  he  neuer  drank  any  better  new  wine  in 
France." 

I  must  confess  to  more  doubt  of  the  goodness  of  the 
wine  than  of  the  speech  of  the  ambassador ;  French 
ambassadors  are  always  so  complaisant ! 

Again  he  indulges  us  in  the  story  of  a  pretty  conceit 
whereby  that  "delicate  Knight,"  Sir  Francis  Carew, 
proposed  to  astonish  the  Queen  by  a  sight  of  a  cherry- 
tree  in  full  bearing,  a  month  after  the  fruit  had  gone 
by  in  England.  This  secret  he  performed,  by  "  strain- 
ing a  Tent  or  couer  of  canuass  ouer  the  whole  tree,  and 
wetting  the  same  now  and  then  with  a  scoope  or  home, 
as  the  heat  of  the  weather  required :  and  so,  by  with- 
olding  the  sunne  beams  from  reflecting  upon  the  ber 


Hi  WET  DAYS. 

ries,  they  grew  both  great,  and  were  very  long  before 
they  had  gotten  their  perfect  cherrie-colour :  and  when 
he  was  assured  of  her  Majestie's  conuning,  he  renioued 
the  Tent,  and  a  few  sunny  daies  brought  them  to  their 
full  maturities." 

These  notices  are  to  be  found  in  his  "  Flores  Para- 
disae."  Another  work,  entitled  "  Dyuers  Soyles  for 
manuring  pasture  and  arable  land,"  enumerates,  in  ad- 
dition to  the  usual  odorous  collection,  such  extraordi- 
narily new  matters  (in  that  day)  as  "salt,  street-dirt, 
clay,  Fullers  earth,  moorish  earth,  fern,  hair,  calcination 
of  all  vegetables,  malt  dust,  soap  -  boilers  ashes,  and 
marie."  But  what  I  think  particularly  commends  him  to 
notice,  and  makes  him  worthy  to  be  enrolled  among 
the  pioneers,  is  his  little  tract  upon  "  The  Setting  of 
Corne."  * 

In  this  he  anticipates  the  system  of  "  dibbling " 
grain,  which,  notwithstanding,  is  spoken  of  by  writers 
within  half  a  century  f  as  a  new  thing ;  and  which,  it 
is  needless  to  say,  still  prevails  extensively  in  many 
parts  of  England.  If  the  tract  alluded  to  be  indeed 
the  work  of  Sir  Hugh  Flatt,  it  antedates  very  many  of 
the  suggestions  and  improvements  which  are  usually 

*  This  is  not  mentioned  either  by  Folton  in  his  Fwli-m/s,  etc.,  by 
Johnron  in  his  1/itstori/  of  (j:ir;h>iinf/,  or  by  London.  Donaldson  gives 
tl:e  title,  and  the  headings  of  the  chapters.  I  also  observe  that  it  is 
alluded  to  by  a  lute  writer  in  the  L<mdon  (lutirlerly. 

t  See  Young,  AnnaU  of  Agriculture,  Vol.  III.  p.  219,  et  seq. 


SIR  HUGH  PL  ATT.  145 

accorded  to  Tull.  The  latter,  indeed,  proposed  the 
drill,  and  repeated  tillage ;  but  certain  advantages,  be- 
fore unconsidered,  such  as  increased  tillering  of  individ- 
ual plants,  economy  of  seed,  and  facility  of  culture,  are 
common  to  both  systems.  Sir  Hugh,  in  consecutive 
chapters,  shows  how  the  discovery  came  about ;  "  why 
the  corne  shootes  into  so  many  eares";  how  the 
ground  is  to  be  dug  for  the  new  practice ;  and  what 
are  the  several  instruments  for  making  the  holes  and 
covering  the  grain. 

He  further  relates,  with  a  simplicity  which  is  almost 
suspicious,  that  the  art  of  dibbling  grain  originated 
with  a  silly  wench  who  had  been  put  by  her  master  to 
the  setting  of  carrots  and  radishes ;  and  having  some 
seed-wheat  in  her  bag,  she  dropped  some  kernels  into 
the  holes  prepared  for  the  carrots,  and  these  few  ker- 
nels shot  up  with  such  a  wonderful  luxuriance  as  had 
never  been  seen  before. 

I  cannot  take  a  more  courteous  leave  of  this  worthy 
gentleman  than  by  giving  his  own  envoi  to  the  most 
considerable  of  his  books :  —  "  Thus,  gentle  Reader, 
having  acquainted  thee  with  my  long,  costly,  and  labo- 
rious collections,  not  written  at  Adventure,  or  by  an 
imaginary  conceit  in  a  Scholler's  private  studie,  but 
wrung  out  of  the  earth,  by  the  painfull  hand  of  experi- 
ence :  and  having  also  given  thee  a  touch  of  Nature, 
whom  no  man  as  yet  ever  durst  send  naked  into  the 
10 


146  WET  DAYS. 

worlde  without  her  veyle :  and  Expecting,  by  thy  good 
entertainement  of  these,  some  encouragement  for  higher 
and  deeper  discoveries  hereafter,  I  leave  thee  to  the 
God  of  Nature,  from  whom  all  the  true  light  of  Nature 
proceedeth." 

Gervase   Markham. 

ERVASE  MARKHAM  must  have  been  a  rois- 
tering  gallant  about  the  time  that  Sir  Hugh  was 
conducting  his  experiments  on  "  Soyles  "  ;  for,  in  1591, 
he  had  the  honor  to  be  dangerously  wounded  in  a  duel 
which  he  fought  in  behalf  of  the  Countess  of  Shrews- 
bury ;  there  are  also  some  painful  rumors  current  (in 
old  books)  in  regard  to  his  habits  in  early  life,  which 
weaken  somewhat  our  trust  in  him  as  a  quiet  country- 
counsellor.  I  suspect,  that,  up  to  mature  life,  at  any 
rate,  he  knew  much  more  about  the  sparring  of  a 
game-cock  than  the  making  of  capons.  Yet  he  wrote 
books  upon  the  proper  care  of  beasts  and  fowls,  as 
well  as  upon  almost  every  subject  connected  with  hus- 
bandry. And  that  these  were  good  books,  or  at  least 
in  large  demand,  we  have  in  evidence  the  memoran- 
dum of  a  promise  which  some  griping  bookseller  ex- 
torted from  him,  under  date  of  July,  1617:  — 

"  I,  Gervase  Markham,  of  London,  Gent,  do  promise 


GERVASE  MARKHAM.  147 

hereafter  never  to  write  any  more  book  or  books  to  be 
printed  of  the  diseases  or  cures  of  any  cattle,  as  horse, 
oxe,  cowe,  sheepe,  swine  and  goates,  &c.  In  witness 
whereof,  I  have  hereunto  sett  my  hand,  the  24lh  day  of 
Julie.  "  GEKVIS  MARKHAM." 

I  have  already  alluded  to  his  edition  of  the  "Mai- 
son  Rustique  "  of  Liebault ;  and  notwithstanding  the 
religiously  meditative  air  which  belongs  to  some  por- 
tions of  his  "  Country  Contentments,"  he  had  a  hand 
in  the  concoction  of  one  or  two  poems  that  kindled 
greatly  the  ire  of  the  Puritan  clergy. 

From  a  book  of  his  to  which  he  gave  the  title  of 
"  The  English  Husbandman  "  I  venture  to  copy  on  the 
next  page  a  little  plan  of  an  English  farm-house,  which 
he  assures  us  is  given  not  to  please  men  of  dignity, 
but  for  the  profit  of  the  plain  husbandman. 

There  is  no  doubt  but  he  was  an  adroit  book-maker  ; 
and  the  value  of  his  labors,  in  respect  to  practical 
husbandry,  was  due  chiefly  to  his  art  of  arranging,, 
compacting,  and  illustrating  the  maxims  and  practices 
already  received.  His  observations  upon  diseases  of 
cattle  and  upon  horsemanship  were  doubtless  based  on 
experimental  knowledge  ;  for  he  was  a  rare  and  ardent 
sportsman,  and  possessed  all  a  sportsman's  keenness  in 
the  detection  of  infirmities. 

In  this  connection  I  quote  a  little  passage  about  the 


148 


WET  DAYS. 


LJ= 


M 


N         0  N 


H 


A  MODEL  ENGLISH  FARM-HOUSE,  A.  t.  1600.* 

manner  of  "  putting  a  Cocke  into  battel,"  which  he  has 
interpolated  upon  the  grave  work  of  the  Councillor 
Heresbach. 

"  When  your  cocke  is  equally  matched,  it  is  then 
your  part  to  give  him  all  the  naturall  and  lawfull  advan- 
tages, which  may  availe  for  his  conquest;  -as  first  to 

*  Explanation  of  references :  — 

"A.  Signifies  the  great  hall.  H.  Inner  cellar  to  serve  for  larder. 

B.  The  dining-parlor  for  stran-    I.    Buttery. 

gers.  K.  Kitchen. 

C.  Closet  for  use  of  mistress.          L.   Dairy -house. 

D.  Strangers'  lodging.  M.  Milk-house. 

E.  Staircase  to  room  over  parlor.  N.  A  faire  sawne  pale. 

F.  Staircase  to  goodman's  room.  O.  Great  gate  to  ride  in  to  hall-dore. 

G.  The  skrene  iu  the  hall.  P.  Place  for  pump." 


GERVASE  MARKHAM.  149 

disburden  him  of  all  things  superfluous,  as  extravagant 
feathers  about  his  head,  the  long  feathers  of  his  Mane, 
even  from  the  head  to  the  Shoulders,  and  this  must  be 
done  as  close  to  the  necke  as  may  be,  for  the  least 
feather  his  enemy  can  catch  hould  on,  is  a  ladder  by 
which  he  will  rise  to  destroy  him;  also  the  small 
feathers  about  his  nunpe  and  others  of  like  nature. 
As  thus  he  takes  away  things  superfluous,  so  you  must 
add  to  those  which  have  anything  wanting,  as  if  his 
Beake  be  rough,  you  must  smooth  it,  but  not  weaken  it ; 
if  his  Spurres  be  blunt  and  uneven,  you  must  sharpen 
them  and  make  them  so  piercing  that  on  the  smallest 
entrance,  they  may  run  up  to  the  very  beame  of  the 
leg ;  and  for  his  wings  you  must  make  them  like  the 
wings  of  a  Dragon,  every  feather  like  a  ponyard,  stab- 
bing and  wounding  wheresoever  they  touch :  this  done 
rub  his  head  over  with  your  own  Spittel,  and  so  leave 
him  to  Fortune." 

The  advice  may  seem  somewhat  out  of  date,  and  yet 
I  cannot  help  being  reminded  by  it  of  the  way  in  which 
our  politicians  prepare  their  Presidential  candidates. 
The  last  suggestion  of  Markham  (as  cited  above)  is 
particularly  descriptive. 

It  would  be  unfair  to  the  good  man's  memory  to  leave 
him  pitting  a  cock  ;  so  I  will  give  the  reader  some  of 
his  hints  in  regard  to  the  appointments  of  the  English 
housewife. 


150  WET  DAYS. 

"  Let  her  garments,"  he  says,  (and  it  might  be  said  in 
New  England,)  "  be  comely  and  strong,  made  as  well  to 
preserve  health,  as  to  adorn  the  person,  altogether  with- 
out toyish  garnishes,  or  the  gloss  of  light  colors,  and 
as  far  from  the  vanity  of  new  and  fantastick  fashions, 
as  near  to  the  comely  imitation  of  modest  matrons.  Let 
her  dyet  be  wholsome  and  cleanly,  prepared  at  due 
hours,  and  cooked  with  care  and  diligence ;  let  it  be 
rather  to  satisfie  nature,  than  her  affections,  and  apter 
to  kill  hunger,  than  revive  new  appetites.  Let  it  pro- 
ceed more  from  the  provision  of  her  own  yard,  than 
the  furniture  of  the  markets ;  and  let  it  be  rather  es- 
teemed for  the  familiar  acquaintance  she  hath  with  it, 
than  for  the  strangeness  and  rarity  it  bringeth  from 
other  countries. 

"  To  conclude,  our  English  Housewife  must  be  of 
chaste  thoughts,  stout  courage,  patient,  untired,  watch- 
ful, diligent,  witty,  pleasant,  constant  in  friendship,  full 
of  good  neighborhood,  wise  in  discourse,  but  not  fre- 
quent therein,  sharp  and  quick  of  speech,  but  not  bitter 
or  talkative,  secret  in  her  affairs,  comfortable  in  her 
counsels,  and  generally  skilfull  in  the  worthy  knowl- 
edges which  do  belong  to  her  vocation." 

Again  he  gives  us  the  details  of  a  "  humble  feast 
of  a  proportion  which  any  good  man  may  keep  in  his 
family." 

"  As  thus :  —  first,  a  shield  of  brawn  with  mustard  ; 


GERVASE  MARKUAM.  151 

secondly,  a  boyl'd  capon ;  thirdly,  a  boyl'd  piece  of 
beef ;  fourthly,  a  chine  of  beef  rested  ;  fifthly,  a  neat's 
tongue  rosted ;  sixthly,  a  pig  rested ;  seventhly,  chewits 
baked  ;  eightly,  a  goose  rosted ;  ninthly,  a  swan  rosted ; 
tenthly,  a  turkey  rosted ;  eleventh,  a  haunch  of  venison 
rosted ;  twelfth,  a  pasty  of  venison ;  thirteenth,  a  kid 
with  a  pudding  in  the  belly ;  fourteenth,  an  olive  pye  ; 
the  fifteenth,  a  couple  of  capons;  the  sixteenth,  a 
custard  or  dowsets." 

This  is  what  Master  Gervase  calls  a  frugal  dinner,  for 
the  entertainment  of  a  worthy  friend  ;  is  it  any  wonder 
that  he  wrote  about  "  Country  Contentments  "  ? 

My  chapter  is  nearly  full ;  and  a  burst  of  sunshine  is 
flaming  over  all  the  land  under  my  eye ;  and  yet  I  am 
but  just  entered  upon  the  period  of  English  literary 
history  which  is  most  rich  in  rural  illustration.  The 
mere  backs  of  the  books  relating  thereto,  as  my  glance 
ranges  over  them,  where  they  stand  in  tidy  platoon, 
start  a  delightfully  confused  picture  to  my  mind. 

I  think  it  possible  that  Sir  Hugh  Platt  may  some 
day  entertain  at  his  Bednall-Greene  garden  the  wor- 
shipful Francis  Bacon,  who  is  living  down  at  Twicken- 
ham, and  who  is  a  thriving  lawyer,  and  has  written  es- 
says, which  Sir  Hugh  must  know,  —  in  which  he  dis- 
courses shrewdly  upon  gardens,  as  well  as  many  kindred 
matters ;  and  through  his  wide  correspondence,  Sir ' 


152  WET  DAYS. 

Hugh  must  probably  have  heard  of  certain  new  herbs 
which  have  been  brought  home  from  Virginia  and  the 
Roanoke,  and  very  possibly  he  is  making  trial  of  a  to- 
bacco-plant in  his  garden,  to  be  submitted  some  day  to 
his  friend,  the  French  ambassador. 

I  can  fancy  Gervase  Markham  "  making  a  night  of 
it"  with  those  rollicking  bachelors,  Beaumont  and 
Fletcher,  at  the  "  Mermaid,"  or  going  with  them  to  the 
Globe  Theatre  to  see  two  Warwickshire  brothers,  Ed- 
mund and  Will  Shakspeare,  who  are  on  the  boards 
there,  —  the  latter  taking  the  part  of  Old  Knowell,  in 
Ben  Jonson's  play  of  "  Every  Man  in  his  Humour.'' 
His  friends  say  that  this  Will  has  parts. 

Then  there  is  the  fiery  and  dashing  Sir  Philip  Sidney, 
who  threatened  to  thrust  a  dagger  into  the  heart  of  poor 
Molyneux,  his  father's  steward,  for  opening  private 
letters  (which  poor  Molyneux  never  did)  ;  and  Sir 
Philip  knows  all  about  poetry  and  the  ancients;  and 
in  virtue  of  his  knowledges,  he  writes  a  terribly  magnil- 
oquent and  tedious  "  Arcadia,"  which,  when  he  comes 
to  die  gallantly  in  battle,  is  admired  and  read  every- 
where :  nowadays  it  rests  mostly  on  the  shelf.  But 
the  memory  of  his  generous  and  noble  spirit  is  far  live- 
lier than  his  book.  It  was  through  him,  and  his  friend- 
ship, probably,  that  the  poet  Spenser  was  gifted  by  the 
Queen  with  a  fine  farm  of  three  thousand  acres  among 
the  Bally-Howra  hills  of  Ireland. 


GEliVASE  MARKIIAM.  153 

And  it  was  here  that  Sir  Walter  Raleigh,  that  "  shep- 
herd of  the  sea,"  visited  the  poet,  and  found  him  seated 

"  amongst  the  coolly  shade 
Of  the  green  alders,  by  the  Mulla's  shore." 

Did  the  gallant  privateer  possibly  talk  with  the  far- 
mer about  the  introduction  of  that  new  esculent,  the 
potato?*  Did  they  talk  tobacco?  Did  Colin  Clout 
have  any  observations  to  make  upon  the  rot  in  sheep, 
or  upon  the  probable  "  clip  "  of  the  year  ? 

Nothing  of  this ;  but 

"He  pip'd,  I  sung;  and  when  he  sung,  I  pip'd: 
By  chaunge  of  tunes  each  making  other  merry. " 

The  lines  would  make  a  fair  argument  of  the  poet's 
bucolic  life.  I  have  a  strong  faith  that  his  farming  was 
of  the  higgledy-piggledy  order ;  I  do  not  believe  that 
he  could  have  set  a  plough  into  the  sod,  or  have  made 
a  good  "  cast "  of  barley.  It  is  certain,  that,  when 

*  Introduced  probably  by  Sir  Walter  Raleigh  about  1586.  But  the 
vegetable  was  a  delicacy  (or  at  least  a  rarity)  in  James  I.'s  time;  and 
in  1619  a  small  number  were  bought  for  the  Queen's  use  at  one  shil- 
ling per  pound.  In  1662  they  were  recommended  by  the  Royal  Society 
for  more  extended  cultivation. 

Scot  Burn,  Outlints  of  Modern  Farming,  p.  43,  gives  (without  au- 
thority) the  year  175.0  as  the  date  of  their  final  introduction  as  a  field- 
crop.  Parkinson,  in  his  Theatrum  Botanicum,  first  published  in  1640, 
names  among  garden-vegetables, "  Spanish  potatoes,  Virginia  potatoes, 
and  Canada  potatoes  ( Jerusalem  artichoke)."  See  also  Johnson,  History 
of  Gardtniny,p.  103.  John  Mortimer,  writing  as  late  as  1707,  (  Cminlry- 
niun's  Knlendar,)  says  of  the  potato,  "  The  root  is  very  near  the  nature 
of  the  Jerusalem  artichoke,  but  not  so  good  or  wholesome.  Those  are 
planted  either  of  roots  or  seeds,  and  may  probably  be  propagated  in 
great  quantities,  and  prove  good  food  for  swine." 


154  WET  DAYS. 

the  Tyrone  rebels  burned  him  out  of  Kilcolman  Castle, 
he  took  no  treasure  with  him  but  his  Elizabeth  and 
the  two  babes  ;  and  the  only  treasures  he  left  were  the 
ashes  of  the  dear  child  whose  face  shone  on  him  there 
for  the  last  time,  — 

"  bright  with  many  a  curl 
That  clustered  round  her  head." 

I  wish  I  could  love  his  "  Shepherd's  Calendar  "  ;  but 
I  cannot.  Abounding  art  of  language,  exquisite  fan- 
cies, delicacies  innumerable  there  may  be  ;  but  there  is 
no  exhilarating  air  from  the  mountains,  no  crisp  breezes, 
no  songs  that  make  the  welkin  ring,,  no  river  that 
champs  the  bit,  no  sky-piercing  falcon. 

And  as  for  the  "  Faery  Queene,"  if  I  must  confess  it, 
I  can  never  read  far  without  a  sense  of  suffocation  from 
the  affluence  of  its  beauties.  It  is  a  marvellously  fair 
sea  and  broad,  —  with  tender  winds  blowing  over  it, 
and  all  the  ripples  are  iris-hued ;  but  you  long  for  some 
brave  blast  that  shall  scoop  great  hollows  in  it,  and 
shake  out  the  briny  beads  from  its  lifted  waters,  and 
drive  wild  scuds  of  spray  among  the  screaming  cur- 
lews. 

In  short,  I  can  never  read  far  in  Spenser  without  tak- 
ing a  rest,  —  as  we  farmers  lean  upon  our  spades,  when 
the  digging  is  in  unctuous  fat  soil  that  lifts  heavily. 

And  so  I  leave  the  matter,  —  with  the  "  F;u;ry 
Queene  "  in  my  thought,  and  leaning  on  my  spade. 


FIFTH  DAT. 


English  Weather. 

WE  are  fairly  on  English  ground  now  ;  of  course, 
it  is  wet  weather.  The  phenomena  of  the  Brit- 
ish climate  have  not  changed  much  since  the  time  when 
the  rains  "  let  fall  their  horrible  pleasure "  upon  the 
head  of  the  poor,  drenched  outcast,  Lear.  Thunder 
and  lightning,  however,  which  belonged  to  that  partic- 
ular war  of  the  elements,  are  rare  in  England.  The 
rain  is  quiet,  fine,  insinuating,  constant  as  a  lover,  —  not 
wasting  its  resources  in  sudden,  explosive  outbreaks. 

During  a  foot-tramp  of  some  four  hundred  miles, 
which  I  once  had  the  pleasure  of  making  upon  English 
soil,  and  which  led  me  from  the  mouth  of  the  Thames 
to  its  sources,  and  thence  through  Derbyshire,  the  West 
Riding  of  Yorkshire,  and  all  of  the  Lake  counties,  I  do 
not  think  that  the  violence  of  the  rain  kept  me  housed 
for  more  than  five  days  out  of  forty.  Not  to  say  that 
the  balance  showed  sunshine  and  a  bonny  sky  ;  on  the 


156  WET  DAYS. 

contrary,  a  soft,  lubricating  mist  is  the  normal  condition 
of  the  British  atmosphere ;  and  a  neutral  tint  of  gray 
sky,  when  no  wet  is  falling,  is  almost  sure  to  call  out 
from  the  country-landlord,  if  communicative,  an  explo- 
sive and  authoritative,  "  Fine  morning,  this,  Sir !  " 

The  really  fine,  sunny  days  —  days  you  believed  in 
rashly,  upon  the  sunny  evidence  of  such  blithe  poets  as 
Herrick  —  are  so  rare,  that,  after  a  month  of  British 
travel,  you  can  count  them  on  your  fingers.  On  such  a 
one,  by  a  piece  of  good  fortune,  I  saw  all  the  parterres 
of  Hampton  Court,  —  its  great  vine,  its  labyrinthine 
walks,  its  stately  alleys,  its  ruddy  range  of  brick,  its 
clipped  lindens,  its  rotund  and  low-necked  beauties  of 
Sir  Peter  Lely,  and  the  red  geraniums  flaming  on  the 
wKdow-sills  of  once  royal  apartments,  where  the  pen- 
sioned dowagers  now  dream  away  their  lives.  On 
another  such  day,  Twickenham,  and  all  its  delights  of 
trees,  bowers,  and  villas,  were  flashing  in  the  sun  as 
brightly  as  ever  in  the  best  days  of  Horace  Walpole  or 
of  Pope.  And  on  yet  another,  after  a  weary  tramp,  I 
toiled  up  to  the  inn-door  of  "  The  Bear,"  at  Woodstock ; 
and  after  a  cut  or  two  into  a  ripe  haunch  of  Oxford- 
shire mutton,  with  certain  "  tiny  kickshaws,"  I  saw,  for 
the  first  time,  under  the  light  of  a  glorious  sunset,  that 
exquisite  velvety  stretch  of  the  park  of  Woodstock,  — 
dimpled  with  water,  dotted  with  forest-clumps,  —  where 
companies  of  sleek  fallow-deer  were  grazing  by  the 


ENGLISH   WEATHER.  157 

hundred,  where  pheasants  whirred  away  down  the  aisles 
of  wood,  where  memories  of  Fair  Rosamond  and  of 
Rochester  and  of  Alice  Lee  lingered,  —  and  all  brought 
to  a  ringing  close  by  Southey's  ballad  of  "  Blenheim," 
as  the  shadow  of  the  gaunt  Marlborough  column 
slanted  across  the  path. 

There  are  other  notable  places,  however,  which  seem 
—  so  dependent  are  we  on  first  impressions  —  to  be  al- 
ways bathed  in  a  rain -cloud.  It  is  quite  impossible, 
for  instance,  for  me  to  think  of  London  Bridge  save  as 
a  great  reeking  thoroughfare,  slimy  with  thin  mud,  with 
piles  of  umbrellas  crowding  over  it,  like  an  army  of  tur- 
tles, and  its  balustrade  streaming  with  wet.  The  charm- 
ing little  Dulwich  Gallery,  with  its  Berghems,  Gainsbor- 
oughs,  and  Murillos,  I  remember  as  situated  somewhere 
(for  I  could  never  find  it  again  of  my  own  head)  at 
a  very  rainy  distance  from  London,  under  the  spout  of 
an  interminable  waterfall.  The  guide-books  talk  of  a 
pretty  neighborhood,  and  of  a  thousand  rural  charms 
thereabout ;  I  remember  only  one  or  two  draggled  po- 
licemen in  oil-skin  capes,  and  with  heads  slanted  to  the 
wind,  and  my  cabby,  in  a  four-caped  coat,  shaking  him- 
self like  a  water-dog,  in  the  area.  Exeter,  Gloucester, 
and  Glasgow  are  three  great  wet  cities  in  my  mem- 
ory, —  a  damp  cathedral  in  each,  with  a  damp-coated 
usher  to  each,  who  shows  damp  tombs,  and  whose  talk 
is  dampening  to  the  last  degree.  I  suppose  they  have 


158  WET  DAYS. 

sunshine  in  these  places,  and  in  the  light  of  the  sun  I 
am  sure  that  marvellous  gray  tower  of  Gloucester  must 
make  a  rare  show  ;  but  all  the  reports  in  the  world  will 
not  avail  to  dry  up  the  image  of  those  wet  days  of 
visit 

Considering  how  very  much  the  fair  days  are  over- 
balanced by  the  dirty,  thick,  dropping,  misty  weather 
of  England,  I  think  we  take  a  too  sunny  aspect  of  her 
history  :  it  has  not  been  under  the  full-faced  smiles  of 
heaven  that  her  battles,  revolutions,  executions,  and 
pageants  have  held  their  august  procession  ;  the  rain 
has  wet  many  a  May-day  and  many  a  harvesting,  whose 
traditional  color  (through  tender  English  verses)  is 
gaudy  with  yellow  sunshine.  The  revellers  of  the 
"  Midsummer  Night's  Dream "  would  find  a  wet  turf 
eight  days  out  of  ten  to  disport  upon.  We  think  of 
Bacon  without  an  umbrella,  and  of  Cromwell  without  a 
mackintosh ;  yet  I  suspect  both  of  them  carried  these, 
or  their  equivalents,  pretty  constantly.  Raleigh,  indeed, 
threw  his  velvet  cloak  into  the  mud  for  the  Virgin 
Queen  to  tread  upon,  —  from  which  we  infer  a  recent 
shower  ;  but  it  is  not  often  that  an  historical  incident  is 
so  suggestive  of  the  true  state  of  the  atmosphere. 

History,  however,  does  not  mind  the  rain  :  agriculture 
must.  More  especially  in  any  view  of  British  agri- 
culture, whether  old  or  new,  and  in  any  estimate  of  its 
theories  or  progress,  clue  consideration  must  be  had  for 


ENGLISH  WEATHER.  iiD 

the  generous  dampness  of  the  British  atmosphere.  To 
this  cause  is  to  be  attributed  primarily  that  wonderful 
velvety  turf  which  is  so  unmatchable  elsewhere ;  to  the 
same  cause,  and  to  the  accompanying  even  temperature, 
is  to  be  credited  very  much  of  the  success  of  the 
turnip-culture,  which  has  within  a  century  revolution- 
ized the  agriculture  of  England ;  yet  again,  the  mag- 
ical effects  of  a  thorough  system  of  drainage  are  no- 
where so  demonstrable  as  in  a  soil  constantly  wetted,  and 
giving  a  steady  flow,  however  small,  to  the  discharging 
tile.  Measured  by  inches,  the  rain  -  fall  is  greater  in 
most  parts  of  America  than  in  Great  Britain  ;  but  this 
fall  is  so  capricious  with  us,  often  so  sudden  and  violent, 
that  there  must  be  inevitably  a  large  surface-discharge, 
even  though  the  tile,  three  feet  below,  is  in  working  or- 
der. The  true  theory  of  skilful  drainage  is,  not  to  carry 
away  the  quick  flush  of  a  shower,  but  to  relieve  a  soil 
too  heavily  saturated  by  opening  new  outflows,  setting 
new  currents  astir  of  both  air  and  moisture,  and  thus 
giving  new  life  and  an  enlarged  capacity  to  lands  that 
were  dead  with  a  stagnant  over-soak. 

Bearing  in  mind,  then,  the  conditions  of  the  British 
climate,  which  are  so  much  in  keeping  with  the  "  wet 
weather  "  of  these  studies,  let  us  go  back  again  to  old 
Markham's  day,  and  amble  along  —  armed  with  our 
umbrellas  —  through  the  current  of  the  seventeenth 
century. 


160  WET  DAYS. 

Time  of  James  the  First. 

JAMES  I.,  that  conceited  old  pedant,  whose  "  Coun 
terblast  to  Tobacco  "  has  worked  the  poorest  of 
results,  seems  to  have  had  a  nice  taste  for  fruits ;  and 
Sir  Henry  Wbtton,  his  ambassador  at  Venice,  writing 
from  that  city  in  1622,  says,  —  "I  have  sent  the  choic- 
est melon-seeds  of  all  kinds,  which  His  Majesty  doth 
expect,  as  I  had  order  both  from  my  Lord  Holderness 
and  from  Mr.  Secretary  Calvert."  Sir  Henry  sent  also 
with  the  seeds  very  particular  directions  for  the  culture 
of  the  plants,  obtained  probably  from  some  head-gar- 
dener of  a  Priuli  or  a  Morosini,  whose  melons  had  the 
full  beat  of  Italian  sunshine  upon  the  south  slopes  of 
the  Vicentine  mountains.  The  same  ambassador  sends 
at  that  date  to  Lord  Holderness  "  a  double-flowering 
yellow  rose,  of  no  ordinary  nature  " ;  *  and  it  would  be 
counted  of  no  ordinary  nature  now,  if  what  he  avers 
be  true,  —  that  "  it  flowreth  every  month  from  May  till 
almost  Christmas." 

King  James  took  special  interest  in  the  establishment 
of  his  garden  at  the  Theobald  Palace  in  Hertfordshire  : 
there  were  clipped  hedges,  neat  array  of  linden-avenues, 
fountains,  and  a  Mount  of  Venus  within  a  labyrinth  ; 
twelve  miles  of  wall  encircled  the  park,  and  the  soldiers 
of  Cromwell  found  fine  foraging-ground  in  it,  when  they 
*  Reliquia  Wottoniarwe,  p.  317,  el  teq. 


TIME  OF  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  161 

entered  upon  the  premises  a  few  years  later.  The 
schoolmasterJiing  formed  also  a  guild  of  gardeners  in 
the  city  of  London,  at  whose  hands  certificates  of  capa- 
city for  garden-work  were  demanded,  and  these  to  be 
given  only  after  proper  examination  of  the  applicants. 
Lord  Bacon  possessed  a  beautiful  garden,  if  we  may 
trust  his  own  hints  to  that  effect,  and  the  added  praises 
of  Wotton.  Cashiobury,  Holland  House,  and  Greenwich 
gardens  were  all  noted  in  this  time  ;  and  the  experi- 
ments and  successes  of  the  proprietor  of  Bednall-Greene 
garden  I  have  already  alluded  to.  But  the  country- 
gentleman,  who  lived  upon  his  land  and  directed  the 
cultivation  of  his  property,  was  but  a  very  savage  type 
of  the  Bedford  or  Oxfordshire  landholders  of  our  day. 
It  involved  a  muddy  drag  over  bad  roads,  after  a  heavy 
Flemish  mare,  to  bring  either  one's  self  or  one's  crops 
to  market. 

Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  who  draws  such  a  tender  pic- 
ture of  a  "  Milke-Mayde,"  is  severe,  and,  I  dare  say, 
truthful,  upon  the  country-gentleman.  "  His  conversa- 
tion," says  he,  "  amongst  his  tenants  is  desperate  :  but 
amongst  his  equals  full  of  doubt.  His  travel  is  seldome 
farther  than  the  next  market  towne,  and  his  inquisition 
is  about  the  price  of  corne  :  when  he  travelleth,  he 
will  goe  ten  mile  out  of  the  way  to  a  cousins  house 
of  his  to  save  charges ;  and  rewards  servants  by  taking 
them  by  the  hand  when  hee  departs.  Nothing  under  a 
11 


162  WET  DAYS. 

sub-pcena  can  draw  him  to  London:  and  when  he  is 
there,  he  sticks  fast  upon  every  object,  casts  his  eyes 
away  upon  gazing,  and  becomes  the  prey  of  every  cut- 
purse.  "When  he  comes  home,  those  wonders  serve 
him  for  his  holy-day  talke.  If  he  goe  to  court,  it  is  in 
yellow  stockings  :  and  if  it  be  in  'winter,  in  a  slight 
tafety  cloake,  and  pumps  and  pantofles." 

The  portrait  of  the  smaller  farmer,  who,  in  this  time, 
tilled  his  own  ground,  is  even  more  severely  sketched 
by  Bishop  Earle.  "  A  plain  country  fellow  is  one  that 
manures  his  ground  well,  but  lets  himself  lye  fallow  and 
untilled.  He  has  reason  enough  to  do  his  business,  and 
not  enough  to  be  idle  or  melancholy.  ....  His  hand 
guides  the  plough,  and  the  plough  his  thoughts,  and  his 
ditch  and  land-mark  is  the  very  mound  of  his  medita- 
tions. He  expostulates  with  his  oxen  very  understand- 
ingly,  and  speaks  gee,  and  ree,  better  than  English.  His 
mind  is  not  much  distracted  with  objects,  but  if  a  good 
fat  cow  come  in  his  way,  he  stands  dumb  and  astonished, 
and  though  his  haste  be  never  so  great,  will  fix  here 
half  an  hours  contemplation.  His  habitation  is  some 
poor  thatched  roof,  distinguished  from  his  barn  by  the 
loop-holes  that  let  out  smoak,  which  the  rain  had  long 
since  washed  through,  but  for  the  double  ceiling  of 
bacon  on  the  inside,  which  has  hung  there  from  his 
grandsires  time,  and  is  yet  to  make  rashers  for  pos- 
terity. He  apprehends  Gods  blessings  only  in  a  good 


TIME   OF  JAMES  THE  FIRST.  163 

year,  or  a  fat  pasture,  and  never  praises  him  but  on 
good  ground" 

Such  were  the  men  who  were  to  be  reached  by  the 
agricultural  literature  of  the  day !  Yet,  notwithstand- 
ing this  unpromising  audience,  scarcely  a  year  passed 
but  some  talker  was  found  who  felt  himself  competent 
to  expound  the  whole  art  and  mystery  of  husbandry. 

Adam  Speed,  Gent.,  (from  which  title  we  may  pre- 
sume that  he  was  no  Puritan,)  published  a  little  book  in 
the  year  1626,  which  he  wittily  called  "Adam  out  of 
Eden."  In  this  he  undertakes  to  show  how  Adam,  un- 
der the  embarrassing  circumstance  of  being  shut  out 
of  Paradise,  may  increase  the  product  of  a  farm  from 
two  hundred  pounds  to  two  thousand  pounds  a  year  by 
the  rearing  of  rabbits  on  furze  and  broom  !  •  It  is  all 
mathematically  computed;  there  is  nothing  to  disap- 
point in  the  figures ;  but  I  suspect  there  might  be  in 
the  rabbits. 

Gentlemen  Speed  speaks  of  turnips,  clover,  and  po- 
tatoes ;  he  advises  the  boiling  of  "  butchers'  blood  "  for 
poultry,  and  mixing  the  "  pudding"  with  bran  and  other 
condiments,  which  will  "  feed  the  beasts  very  fat" 

The  author  of  "  Adam  out  of  Eden  "  also  indulges 
himself  in  verse,  which  is  certainly  not  up  to  the  meas- 
ure of  "  Paradise  Lost."  This  is  its  taste :  — 

"  Each  soyl  hath  no  liking  of  every  grain, 
Nor  barley  nor  wheat  is  for  every  vein ; 


164  WET  DAYS. 

Yet  know  I  no  country  so  barren  of  soyl 
But  some  kind  of  corne  may  be  gotten  with  toyl. 
Though  husband  at  home  be  to  count  the  cost  what, 
Yet  thus  huswife  within  is  as  needful  as  that: 
What  helpeth  in  store  to  have-never  so  much, 
Half  lost  by  ill-usage,  ill  huswifes,  and  such?  " 

The  papers  of  Bacon  upon  subjects  connected  with 
rural  life  are  so  familiar  that  I  need  not  recur  to  them. 
His  particular  suggestions,  however  sound  in  themselves, 
(and  they  generally  are  sound,)  did  by  no  means  meas- 
ure the  extent  of  his  contribution  to  the  growth  of 
good  husbandly.  But  the  more  thorough  methods  of 
investigation  which  he  instituted  and  encouraged  gave 
a  new  and  healthier  direction  to  inquiries  connected 
not  only  with  agriculture,  but  with  every  experimental 
art 

Thus,  Gabriel  Platte,  publishing  his  "Observations 
and  Improvements  in  Husbandry,"  about  the  year  1638, 
thinks  it  necessary  to  sustain  and  illustrate  them  with 
a  record  of  "  twenty  experiments." 

Sir  Eichard  Weston,  too,  a  sensible  up  -  country 
knight,  has  travelled  through  Flanders  about  the  same 
time,  and  has  seen  such  success  attending  upon  the 
turnip  and  the  clover  culture  there,  that  he  urges  the 
same  upon  his  fellow-landholders,  in  a  "  Discourse  of 
Husbandrie." 


SAMUEL  HARTLIB.  165 

Samuel  Hartlib. 

r  1 1HE  book  last  named  was  published  under  the  au- 
-*-  spices  of  Hartlib, —  the  same  Master  Samuel  Hartlib 
to  whom  Milton  addressed  his  tractate  "  Of  Education," 
and  of  whom  the  great  poet  speaks  as  "  a  person  sent 
hither  [to  England]  by  some  good  Providence  from  a 
far  country,  to  be  the  occasion  and  incitement  of  great 
good  to  this  island." 

This  mention  makes  us  curious  to  know  something 
more  of  Master  Samuel  Hartlib.  I  find  that  he  was 
the  son  of  a  Polish  merchant,  of  Lithuania,  was  him- 
self engaged  for  a  time  in  commercial  transactions,  and 
came  to  England  about  the  year  1640.  He  wrote  sev- 
eral theological  tracts,  edited  sundry  agricultural  works, 
including,  among  others,  those  of  Sir  Richard  "Weston, 
and  published  his  own  observations  upon  the  shortcom- 
ings of  British  husbandry.  He  also  proposed  a  grandiose 
scheme  for  an  agricultural  college,  in  order  to  teach 
youths  "  the  theorick  and  practick  parts  of  this  most 
ancient,  noble,  and  honestly  gainfull  art,  trade,  or  mys- 
tery." Another  work  published  by  him,  entitled  "  The 
Legacy,"  besides  notices  of  the  Brabant  husbandry,  em- 
braces epistles  from  various  farmers,  who  may  be  sup- 
posed to  represent  the  progressive  agriculture  of  Eng- 
land. Among  these  letters  I  note  one  upon  "  Snag- 
greet,"  (shelly  earth  from  river-beds)  ;  another  upon 


166  WET  DAYS. 

"  Seaweeds  "  ;  a  third  upon  "  Sea-sand"  ;  and  a  fourth 
upon  "  Woollen-rags." 

I  also  excerpt  from  the  same  book  a  diagram  of  a 
farm-outlay  which  some  ingenious  correspondent  con- 
tributed, and  which  —  however  well  it  may  appear  on 
paper  —  I  would  by  no  means  advise  an  amateur  far- 
mer to  adopt.  I  give  it  only  as  a  curious  relic  of  the 
agricultural  whims  of  that  day.  It  is  signed  Coressey 
Dymock.  The  contributor  observes  that  it  may  form 
the  plot  of  an  entire  "  Lordship,"  or  may  serve  for  a 
farm  of  two  or  three  hundred  acres. 

Hartlib  was  in  good  odor  during  the  days  of  the 
Commonwealth ;  for  he  lived  long  enough  to  see  that 
bitter  tragedy  of  the  executed  king  before  Whitehall 
Palace,  and  to  hold  over  to  the  early  years  of  the  Res- 
toration. But  he  was  not  in  favor  with  the  people 
about  Charles  II. ;  the  small  pension  that  Cromwell 
had  bestowed  fell  into  sad  arrearages  ;  and  the  story  is, 
that  he  died  miserably  poor. 

It  is  noticeable  that  Hartlib,  and  a  great  many  sensi- 
ble old  gentlemen  of  his  date,  spoke  of  the  art  of  hus- 
bandry as  a  mystery.  And  so  it  is;  a  mystery  then, 
and  a  mystery  now.  Nothing  tries  my  patience  more 
than  to  meet  one  of  those  billet-headed  farmers  who  — 
whether  in  print  or  in  talk  —  pretend  to  have  solved 
the  mystery  and  mastered  it. 

Take  my  own  crop  of  corn  yonder  upon  the   flat, 


SAMUEL  IIARTLID. 


1C7 


DIAGRAM  OF  FAKM-OUTLAY.* 


*  Explanation  of  references :  — 

A.  Dwelling-house  in  centre. 

B.  Kitchen-garden. 

C.  Orchard. 

D.  Choice  garden. 

E.  Physicall  garden. 

F.  F.  Dairy  and  laundry. 

G.  Sheep-cotes. 

H,  H.  Closes  for  swine. 
K,  K.  Great  corn-barns. 
L.  Stables  and  swine-styes. 


M,  M.  Little  houses  for  poultry. 

N.  Standing  racks. 

Q,  Q.  Closes  for  single  animals. 

R,  R.   Closes  for  marcs  and  foal. 

S.  S.   Pastures  for  sheep. 

T,  T.   Closes  for  work-purposes. 

V.   Pasture  for  fat  beeves. 

W.  Close  for  diseased  beasts. 

X.  Close  for  saddle-horse. 

Y.  Close  for  weaning  calves. 


168  WET  DAYS. 

which  I  have  watched  since  the  day  when  it  first  shot 
up  its  little  dainty  spears  of  green,  until  now  its  .spin- 
dles are  waving  like  banners  :  the  land  has  been  faith- 
fully ploughed  and  fed  and  tilled  ;  but  how  gross  appli- 
ances all  these,  to  the  fine  fibrous  feeders  that  have 
been  searching,  day  by  day,  every  cranny  of  the  soil,  — 
to  the  broad  leaflets  that,  week  by  week,  have  stolen  out 
from  their  green  sheaths  to  wanton  with  the  wind  and 
caress  the  dews !  Is  there  any  quick-witted  farmer  who 
shall  tell  us  with  anything  like  definiteness  what  the 
phosphates  have  contributed  to  all  this,  and  how  much 
the  nitrogenous  manures,  and  to  what  degree  the  de- 
posits of  humus  ?  He  may  establish  the  conditions  of 
a  sure  crop,  thirty,  forty,  or  sixty  bushels  to  the  acre, 
(seasons  favoring)  ;  but  how  short  a  reach  is  this 
toward  determining  the  final  capacity  of  either  soil  or 
plant !  How  often  the  most  petted  experiments  laugh 
us  in  the  face !  The  great  miracle  of  the  vital  labora- 
tory in  the  plant  remains  to  mock  us.  We  test  it ;  we 
humor  it ;  we  fondly  believe  that  we  have  detected  its 
secret :  but  the  mystery  stays. 

A  bumpkin  may  rear  a  crop  that  shall  keep  him 
from  starvation ;  but  to  develop  the  utmost  capacity  of 
a  given  soil  by  fertilizing  appliances,  or  by  those  of 
tillage,  is  the  work,  I  suspect,  of  a  wiser  man  than  be- 
longs to  our  day.  And  when  I  find  one  who  fancies 
he  has  resolved  all  the  conditions  which  contribute  to 


COMMONWEALTH  AND  RESTORATION.     1C9 

this  miracle  of  God's,  and  can  control  and  fructify 
at  his  will,  I  have  less  respect  for  his  head  than  for  a 
good  one  —  of  Savoy  cabbage.  The  great  problem  of 
Adam's  curse  is  not  worked  out  so  easily.  The  sweat- 
ing is  not  over  yet. 

If,  however,  we  are  confronted  with  mystery,  it  is  not 
blank,  hopeless,  fathomless  mystery.  It  is  a  lively 
mystery,  that  piques  and  tempts  and  rewards  endeavor. 
It  unfolds  with  an  appetizing  delay.  If  our  plummet- 
lines  do  not  reach  the  bottom,  it  is  only  because  they 
are  too  short ;  but  they  are  growing  longer.  Every 
year  a  new  secret  is  laid  bare,  which,  in  the  flush  of 
triumph,  seems  a  crowning  development;  whereas  it 
presently  appears  that  we  have  only  opened  a  new  door 
upon  some  further  labyrinth. 

Period  of  the  Commonwealth  and  Restoration. 

nHHROUGHOUT  the  seventeenth  century,  the  prog- 
-*-  ress  in  husbandry,  without  being  at  any  one 
period  very  brilliant,  was  decided  and  constant.  If 
there  was  anything  like  a  relapse,  and  neglect  of 
good  culture,  it  was  most  marked  shortly  after  the 
Restoration.  The  country-gentlemen,  who  had  enter- 
tained a  wholesome  horror  of  Cromwell  and  his  troop- 
ers, had,  during  the  Commonwealth,  devoted  them- 
selves to  a  quiet  life  upon  their  estates,  repairing  the 


170  WET   DAYS. 

damages  which  the  Civil  War  had  wrought  in  their 
fortunes  and  in  their  lands.  The  high  price  of  farm- 
products  stimulated  their  efforts,  and  their  country- 
isolation  permitted  a  harmless  show  of  the  chivalrous 
contempt  they  entertained  for  the  new  men  of  the 
Commonwealth.  With  the  return  of  Charles  they 
abandoned  their  estates  once  more  to  the  bailiffs,  and 
made  a  rush  for  the  town  and  for  their  share  of  the 
"  leeks  and  onions." 

But  the  earnest  men  had  been  constantly  at  work. 
Sainfoin  and  turnips  were  growing  every  year  into 
credit.  The  potato  was  becoming  a  crop  of  value; 
and  in  the  year  1664  John  Foster  devoted  a  treatise 
to  it,  entitled,  "  England's  Happiness  increased,  or  a 
Sure  Remedy  against  all  Succeeding  Dear  Years,  by  a 
Plantation  of  Roots  called  Potatoes." 

For  a  long  time  the  crop  had  been  known,  and  Sir 
Thomas  Overbury  had  made  it  the  vehicle  of  one  of 
his  sharp  witticisms  against  people  who  were  forever 
boasting  of  their  ancestry, —  their  best  part  being  be- 
low ground.  But  Foster  anticipates  the  full  value  of 
what  had  before  been  counted  a  novelty  and  a  curios- 
ity. He  advises  how  custards,  paste,  puddings,  and  even 
bread,  may  be  made  from  the  flour  of  potatoes. 

John  Worlidge  in  1669  gave  to  the  public  a  "  System 
of  Husbandry  "  very  full  in  its  suggestions,  —  advising 
green  fallows,  and  even  recommending  and  describing 


COMMONWEALTH  AND  RESTORATION.     171 

a  drill  for  the  putting  in  of  seed,  and  for  distributing 
with  it  a  fine  fertilizer. 

Evelyn,  also,  about  this  time,  gave  a  dignity  to  rural 
pursuits  by  his  "  Sylva  "  and  "  Terra."  both  these  trea- 
tises having  been  recited  before  the  Royal  Society. 
The  "  Terra "  is  something  muddy,*  and  is  by  no 
means  exhaustive  ;  but  the  u  Sylva "  for  more  than  a 
century  was  the  British  planter's  hand-book,  being  a 
judicious,  sensible,  and  eloquent  treatise  upon  a  sub- 
ject as  wide  and  as  beautiful  as  its  title.  Even  Walter 
Scott,  —  himself  a  capital  woodsman,  —  when  he  tells 
(in  "  Kenilworth  ")  of  the  approach  of  Tressilian  and 
his  Doctor  companion  to  the  neighborhood  of  Say's 
Court,  cannot  forego  his  tribute  to  the  worthy  and 
cultivated  author  who  once  lived  there,  and  who  in  his 
"  Sylva  "  gave  a  manual  to  every  British  planter,  and 
in  his  life  an  exemplar  to  every  British  gentleman. 

Evelyn  was  educated  at  Oxford,  travelled  widely 
upon  the  Continent,  was  a  firm  adherent  of  the  royal 
party,  and  at  one  time  a  member  of  Prince  Rupert's 
famous  troop.  He  married  the  daughter  of  the  British 
ambassador  in  Paris,  through  whom  he  came  into  pos- 
session of  Say's  Court,  which  he  made  a  gem  of 
beauty.  But  in  his  later  years  he  had  the  annoyance 
of  seeing  his  fine  parterres  and  shrubbery  trampled 

*  Of  clay  he  says,  "  It  is  a  cursed  step-dame  to  almost  all  vegeta- 
.tion,  ns  having  few  or  no  meatusej  for  the  percolation  of  alhnental 
showers." 


172  WET  DAYS. 

down  by  that  Northern  boor,  Peter  the  Great,  who 
made  his  residence  there  while  studying  the  mysteries 
of  ship-building  at  Deptford,  and  who  had  as  little  rev- 
erence for  a  parterre  of  flowers  as  for  any  other  of  the 
tenderer  graces  of  life. 

The  British  monarchs  have  always  been  more  re- 
gardful of  those  interests  which  were  the  object  of 
Evelyn's  tender  devotion.  I  have  already  alluded  to 
the  horticultural  fancies  of  James  I.  His  son  Charles 
was  an  extreme  lover  of  flowers,  as  well  as  of  a  great 
many  luxuries  which  hedged  him  against  all  Puritan 
sympathy.  "  Who  knows  not,"  says  Milton,  in  his  re- 
ply to  the  EIKON  BA2IAIKH,  "  the  licentious  remiss- 
ness  of  his  Sunday's  theatre,  accompanied  with  that 
reverend  statute  for  dominical  jigs  and  May-poles,  pub- 
lished in  his  own  name,"  etc.  ? 

But  the  poor  king  was  fated  to  have  little  enjoyment 
of  either  jigs  or  May-poles ;  harsher  work  belonged  to 
his  reign  ;  and  all  his  garden-delights  came  to  be  lim- 
ited finally  to  a  little  pot  of  flowers  upon  his  prison- 
window.  And  I  can  easily  believe  that  the  elegant, 
wrong-headed,  courteous  gentleman  tended  these  poor 
flowers  daintily  to  the  very  last,  and  snuffed  their  fra- 
grance with  a  Christian  gratitude. 

Charles  was  an  appreciative  lover  of  poetry,  too,  as 
well  as  of  Nature.  I  wonder  if  it  ever  happened  to 
him,  in  his  prison-hours  at  Carisbrooke,  to  come  upon 


COMMONWEALTH  AND  RESTORATION.     173 

Milton's  "  L'  Allegro,"  (first  printed  in  the  very  year 
of  the  Battle  of  Naseby,)  and  to  read,  — 

"  In  thy  right  hand  lead  with  thee 
The  mountain  nymph,  sweet  Liberty; 
And  if  I  give  thee  honor  due, 
Mirth,  admit  me  of  thy  crew 
To  live  with  her,  and  live  with  thee, 
In  unreproved  pleasures  free; 
To  hear  the  lark  begin  his  flight, 
And,  singing,  startle  the  dull  night, 
From  his  watch-tower  in  the  skies, 
Till  the  dappled  dawn  doth  rise ; 
Then  to  come,  in  spite  of  sorrow, 
And  at  my  window  bid  good-morrow, 
Through  the  sweetbrier,  or  the  vine, 
Or  the  twisted  eglantine." 

How  it  must  have  smitten  the  King's  heart  to  re 
member  that  the  tender  poet,  whose  melody  none  could 
appreciate  better  than  he,  was  also  the  sturdy  Puritan 
pamphleteer  whose  blows  had  thwacked  so  terribly 
upon  the  last  props  that  held  up  his  tottering  throne ! 

Cromwell,  as  we  have  seen,  gave  Master  Hartlib  a 
pension  ;  but  whether  on  the  score  of  his  theological 
tracts,  or  his  design  for  an  agricultural  college,  would 
be  hard  to  say.  I  suspect  that  the  hop  was  the  Pro- 
tector's favorite  among  flowering  plants,  and  that  his 
admiration  of  trees  was  measured  by  their  capacity  for 
timber.  Yet  that  rare  masculine  energy,  which  he 
and  his  men  carried  with  them  in  their  tread  all  over 


174  WET  DAYS. 

Kngland,  was   a   very  wakeful  stimulus  to  productive 
agriculture. 

Charles  II.  loved  tulips,  and  befriended  Evelyn.  In 
his  long  residence  at  Paris  he  had  grown  into  a  great 
fondness  for  the  French  gardens.  He  afterward  sent 
for  Le  Notre  —  who  had  laid  out  Versailles  at  an  ex- 
pense of  twenty  millions  of  dollars  —  to  superintend 
the  planting  of  Greenwich  and  St.  James.  Fortu- 
nately, no  strict  imitation  of  Versailles  was  entered 
upon.  The  splendors  of  Chatsworth  garden  grew  in 
this  time  out  of  the  exaggerated  taste,  and  must  have 
delighted  the  French  heart  of  Charles.  Other  artists 
have  had  the  handling  of  this  great  domain  since  the 
days  of  Le  Notre.  A  crazy  wilderness  of  rock-work, 
amid  which  the  artificial  waters  commit  freak  upon 
freak,  has  been  strewed  athwart  the  lawn  ;  a  stately  con- 
servatory has  risen,  under  which  the  Duke  may  drive,  if 
he  choose,  in  coach  and  four,  amid  palm-trees,  and  the 
monster  vegetation  of  the  Eastern  archipelago  ;  the 
little  glass  temple  is  in  the  gardens,  under  which  the 
Victoria  lily  was  first  coaxed  into  British  bloom  ;  a 
model  village  has  sprung  up  at  the  Park  gates,  in 
which  each  cottage  is  a  gem,  and  seems  transplanted 
from  the  last  book  on  rural  ornamentation.  But  the 
sight  of  the  village  oppresses  one  with  a  strange  incon- 
gruity ;  the  charm  of  realism  is  wanting ;  it  needs  a 
population  out  of  one  of  Watteau's  pictures,  —  clean 


COMMONWEALTH  AND  RESTORATION.     175 

and  deft  as  the  painted  figures  ;  flesh  and  blood  are 
too  gross,  too  prone  to  muddy  shoes,  and  to  —  sneeze. 
The  rock-work,  also,  is  incongruous ;  it  belongs  on  no 
such  wavy  roll  of  park-land ;  you  see  it  a  thousand 
times  grander,  a  half-hour's  drive  away,  toward  Mat- 
lock.  And  the  stiff  parterres,  terraces,  and  alleys  of 
Le  Notre  are  equally  out  of  place  in  such  a  scene.  If, 
indeed,  as  at  Versailles,  they  bounded  and  engrossed 
the  view,  so  that  natural  surfaces  should  have  no  claim 
upon  your  eye,  —  if  they  were  the  mere  setting  to  a 
monster  palace,  whose  colonnades  and  balusters  of 
marble  edged  away  into  colonnades  and  balusters  of 
box-wood,  and  these  into  a  limitless  extent  of  long 
green  lines,  which  are  only  lost  to  the  eye  where  a  dis- 
tant fountain  dashes  its  spray  of  golden  dust  into  the 
air,  —  as  at  Versailles,  —  there  would  be  keeping.  But 
the  Devonshire  palace  has  quite  other  setting.  Blue 
Derbyshire  hills  are  behind  it ;  a  grand,  billowy  slope 
of  the  comeliest  park-land  in  England  rolls  clown  from 
its  terrace-foot  to  where  the  Derwent,  under  hoary  oaks, 
washes  its  thousand  acres  of  meadow-vale,  with  a  flow 
as  channing  and  limpid  as  one  of  Virgil's  eclogues.  It 
is  such  a  setting  that  carries  the  great  quadrangle  of 
Chatsworth  Palace  and  its  flanking  artificialities  of 
rock  and  garden,  like  a  black  patch  upon  the  face  of  a 
fine  woman  of  Charles's  court 

This    brings    us    upon   our   line   of   march   again. 


176  WET  DAYS. 

Charles  II.  loved  stiff  gardens ;  James  II.  loved  stiff 
gardens  ;  and  William,  with  his  Low-Country  tastes, 
outstiffened  both,  with  his 

"topiary  box  a-row." 

Lord  Bacon  has  commended  the  formal  style  to 
public  admiration  by  his  advocacy  and  example.  The 
lesson  was  repeated  at  Cashiobury  by  the  most  noble 
the  Earl  of  Essex  (of  whom  Evelyn  writes,  —  "  My 
Lord  is  not  illiterate  beyond  the  rate  of  most  noblemen 
of  his  age  ").  So  also  that  famous  garden  of  Moor- 
Park  in  Hertfordshire,*  laid  out  by  the  witty  Duchess 
of  Bedford,  to  whom  Dr.  Donne  addresses  some  of  his 
piquant  letters,  was  a  model  of  old  -  fashioned  and 
stately  graces.  Sir  William  Temple  praises  it  beyond 
reason  in  his  "  Garden  of  Epicurus,"  and  cautions 
readers  against  undertaking  any  of  those  irregularities 
of  garden  -  figures  which  the  Chinese  so  much  affect. 
He  admires  only  stateliness  and  primness.  "  Among 
us,"  he  says,  "  the  Beauty  of  Building  and  Planting  is 
placed  chiefly  in  some  certain  Proportions,  Symmetries, 
or  Uniformities ;  our  AValks  and  our  Trees  ranged  so  as 
to  answer  one  another,  and  at  exact  Distances." 

From  all  these  it  is  clear  what  was  the  garden-drift 
of  the  century.  Even  Waller,  the  poet,  —  who  could 
be  more  affluent  with  his  moneys  than  most  poets,  — 

*  Not  to  be  confounded  with  Temple's  own  home  —  of  the  same 
name—  in  Surrey,  where  his  heart  was  buried  under  an  urn. 


OLD  ENGLISH  HOMES.  Ill 

spent  a  large  sum  in  levelling  the  hills  about  his  rural 
home  at  Beaconsfields.  (We  shall  find  a  different  poet 
and  treatment  by-and-by  in  Shenstone.) 

Only  Milton,  speaking  from  the  very  arcana  of  the 
Puritan  rigidities,  breaks  in  upon  these  geomefric  for- 
malities with  the  rounded  graces  of  the  garden  which 
he  planted  in  Eden.  There 

"  the  crisped  brooks, 

Rolling  on  orient  pearl  and  sands  of  gold 
"With  mazy  error  under  pendent  shades, 
Ran  nectar,  visiting  each  plant,  and  fed 
Flowers  worthy  of  Paradise,  which  not  nice  Art 
In  beds  and  curious  knots,  but  Nature  boon 
Poured  forth  profuse  on  hill  and  dale  and  plain." 

Going  far  behind  all  conventionalities,  he  credited 
to  Paradise — the  ideal  of  man's  happiest  estate  — 
variety,  irregularity,  profusion,  luxuriance  ;  and  to  the 
fallen  estate,  precision,  formality,  and  an  inexorable 
Art,  which,  in  place  of  concealing,  glorified  itself.  In 
the  next  century,  when  Milton  comes  to  be  illustrated 
by  Addison  and  the  rest,  we  shall  find  gardens  of  a 
different  style  from  those  of  Waller  and  of  Hampton 
Court 

Old  English  Homes. 

AND  now  from  some   lookout  -  point  near  to  the 
close   of  the   seventeenth    century,   when    John 
Evelyn,  in  his  age,  is  repairing  the  damages  that  Peter 
12 


!7S  WET  DAYS. 

the  Great  has  wrought  in  his  pretty  Deptforcl  home, 
let  us  take  a  bird's-eye  glance  at  rural  England. 

It  is  raining ;  and  the  clumsy  Bedford  coach,  drawn 
by  stout  Flemish  mares,  —  for  thorough-breds  are  as 
yet  unknown,  —  is  covered  with  a  sail-cloth  to  keep  the 
wet  away  from  the  six  "  insides."  The  grass,  wherever 
the  land  is  stocked  with  grass,  is  as  velvety  as  now. 
The  wheat  in  the  near  county  of  Herts  is  fair,  and  will 
turn  twenty  bushels  to  the  acre  ;  here  and  there  an 
enterprising  landholder  has  a  small  field  of  dibbled 
grain,  which  will  yield  a  third  more.  John  Worliclge's 
drill  is  not  in  request,  and  is  only  talked  of  by  a  few 
wiseacres  who  prophesy  its  ultimate  adoption.  The  fat 
bullocks  of  Bedford  will  not  dress  more  than  nine 
hundred  a  head  ;  and  the  cows,  if  killed,  would  not 
overrun  five  hundred  weight.  Horses  "  run  at  grass  " 
for  eighteenpence  per  week;  oxen  and  cows  at  sixpence 
to  a  shilling,  according  to  size.*  There  are  occasional 
fields  of  sainfoin  and  of  turnips ;  but  jthese  latter  are 
small,  and  no  ridging  or  hurdling  is  yet  practised. 
From  time  to  time  appears  a  patch  of  barren  moor- 
land, which  has  been  planted  with  forest-trees,  in  ac- 
cordance with  the  suggestions  of  Mr.  Evelyn,  and  under 
the  wet  sky  the  trees  are  thriving.  Wide  reaches  of 
fen,  measured  by  hundreds  of  miles,  (which  now  bear 

*   The   Country  Gentleman's    Vade-Mecum,  by  Giles  Jacoh,  Gent., 
1717. 


OLD  ENGLISH  HOMES.  179 

great  crops  of  barley,)  are  saturated  with  moisture,  and 
tenanted  only  by  ghost-like  companies  of  cranes. 

The  gardens  attached  to  noble  houses,  under  the  care 
of  some  pupil  of  John  Rose  or  of  Quintinie,  have  their 
espaliers.  —  their  plums,  their  pears,*  and  their  grapes. 
These  last  are  rare,  however,  (Parkinson  says  sour, 
too,)  and  bear  a  great  price  in  the  London  market. 
One  or  two  horticulturists  of  extraordinary  enterprise 
have  built  greenhouses,  warmed,  Evelyn  says,  "  in  a 
most  ingenious  way,  by  passing  a  brick  flue  underneath 
the  beds." 

But  these  were  quite  exceptional  among  the  country- 
gentry,  —  fully  as  much  so  as  the  ruralist  of  our  time 
who  has  his  orchard-house,  and  who  entertains  his 
friends  in  May  or  June  with  a  dwarf  nectarine  upon  the 
table,  in  full  bearing.  I  suspect  that  if  we  had  wan- 
dered, in  the  days  of  which  I  speak,  into  the  house  of 
a  Dorsetshire  squire,  we  should  have  found  in  the  great 
hall  terriers,  spaniels,  and  hounds  lying  about  promis- 
cuously, with,  very  likely,  a  litter  of  cats  in  a  big  arm- 
chair ;  there  would  have  been  an  oaken  table  covered 
with  cards  and  dice-boxes ;  in  a  cupboard  of  the  wain- 
scot I  am  sure  we  should  have  found  a  venison-pasty, 
and  a  black  case-bottle  of  "  something  warming."  Very 

*  Sir  William  Temple  gives  this  list  of  his  pears:  —  Blanquet,  Robin, 
FJousselct,  Pepin,  Jargonel;  and  for  autumn:  Buree,  Vertlongue,  and 
Uergauiot. 


180  WET  DAYS. 

likely  upon  some  double-decked  table,  which  has  the 
air  of  an  altar  there  would  be  a  Bible  and  the  "  Book 
of  Martyrs  "  ;  but  for  all  the  flax-haired  squire  had  to 
do  with  them,  they  would  be  dusty  ;  and  ten  to  one  a 
hawk's-hood  or  a  fox-skin  might  be  lying  on  them. 
Tobacco-pipes  would  not  be  out  of  sight,  and  a  stale 
scent  of  them  would  mingle  with  the  smell  of  terriers 
and  half-dried  otter-skins.  Worlidge  and  Evelyn  would 
be  as  much  sneered  at  (if  ever  heard  of)  by  such  a 
squire  as  the  progressive  agriculturists  are  by  our  old- 
fashioned  men  now ;  and  like  these  last  the  old  squire 
would  hold  tenaciously  upon  life,  - —  mounting  a  horse 
at  fourscore,  and  knowing  nothing  of  spectacles.*  I 
can  fancy  such  an  old  gentleman  saying  to  his  after- 
dinner  guest,  with  Shallow,  (who  lived  so  long  before 
him,)  "  Nay,  you  shall  see  mine  orchard :  where  in  an 
arbor,  we  will  eat  a  last  year's  pippin  of  my  own  graff- 
ing,  with  a  dish  of  carraways,  and  so  forth." 

Yet  this  flax-haired,  rotund  squire,  so  loud-mouthed 
and  tyrannic  in  his  own  household,  would  hardly  ven- 
ture up  to  London,  for  fear  of  the  footpads  on  the 
heath  and  the  insolence  of  the  blackguard  Cockneys. 
His  wife  should  be  some  staid  dame,  lean,  but  rosy  of 
visage,  learned  at  the  brew-tub  and  in  the  buttery,  who 
could  bandy  words  on  occasions  with  the  squire,  yet 
not  speaking  French,  nor  wearing  hoops  or  patches. 
*  See  Gilpin's  Forest  Scenery,  Vol.  II.  pp.  23-20. 


OLD  ENGLISH  HOMES.  181 

A   daughter,   it   may   be,   illumines    the    place,    (who 
knows  ?)  — 

"  yclcped  Dawsabel 

A  maiden  fair  and  free: 
And  for  she  was  her  fathers  heir, 
Full  well  she  was  ycond  the  leir 

Of  mickle  courtesy. 

"  Her  features  all  as  fresh  above, 
As  is  the  grass  that  grows  by  Dove, 

And  lythe  as  lass  of  Kent. 
Her  skin  as  soft  as  Leinster  wool, 
As  white  as  snow  on  peakish  Hull, 
Or  swan  that  swims  in  Trent." 

DRAYTOS. 

A  great  many  of  the  older  exotic  plants  would,  I 
suppose,  be  domesticated  at  the  door,  and  possibly  wife 
or  daughter  would  have  plead  successfully  with  the 
squire  for  the  presence  of  a  few  rare  bulbs  from  Hol- 
land ;  but  whether  these  or  not,  we  may  be  sure  that 
there  was  a  flaming  parterre  of  peonies,  of  fleurs-de- 
lis,  and  of  roses ;  yet  all  of  these  not  half  so  much 
valued  by  the  good-wife  as  her  bed  of  marjoram  and 
of  thyme.  She  may  read  King  James's  Bible,  or,  if  a 
Non  -  Conformist,  Baxter's  "  Saint's  Rest "  ;  while  the 
husband  (if  he  ever  reads  at  all)  regales  himself  with  a 
thumb-worn  copy  of  "  Sir  Fopling  Flutter,"  or,  if  he 
live  well  into  the  closing  years  of  the  century,  with  De 
Foe's  "  True-born  Englishman." 


182  WET  DAYS. 

A  Brace  of  Pastorals. 

POETIC  feeling  was  more  lacking  in  the  country-life 
than  in  the  illustrative  literature  of  the  period. 
To  say  nothing  of  Milton's  brilliant  little  poems 
"  L'  Allegro  "  and  "  II  Penseroso,"  which  flash  all  over 
with  the  dews,  there  are  the  charming  "  Characters  "  of 
Sir  Thomas  Overbury,  and  the  graceful  discourse  of 
Sir  William  Temple.  The  poet  Drummond  wrought  a 
music  out  of  the  woods  and  waters  which  lingers  allur- 
ingly even  now  around  the  delightful  cliffs  and  valleys 
of  Hawthornden.  John  Dryden,  though  a  thorough 
cit,  and  a  man  who  would  have  preferred  his  arm-chair 
at  "Will's  Coffee-House  to  Chatsworth  and  the  fee  of  all 
its  lands,  has  yet  touched  most  tenderly  the  "  daisies 
white  "  and  the  spring,  in  his  adaptation  of  "  The  Flower 
and  the  Leaf." 

But  we  skip  a  score  of  the  poets,  and  bring  our  wet 
day  to  a  close  with  the  naming  of  two  honored  pasto- 
rals. The  first,  in  sober  prose,  is  nothing  more  nor  less 
than  Walton's  "Angler."  Its  homeliness,  its  calm, 
sweet  pictures  of  fields  and  brooks,  its  dainty  per- 
fume of  flowers,  its  delicate  shadowing-forth  of  the 
Christian  sentiment  which  lived  by  old  English  fire- 
sides, its  simple,  artless  songs,  (not  always  of  the 
highest  style,  but  cf  a  hearty  naturalness  that  is  infi- 
nitely better,)  —  these  make  the  "  Angler  "  a  book  that 


BRACE  OF  PASTORALS.  183 

stands  among  the  thumb-worn.  There  is  good  mar- 
rowy English  in  it;  I  know  very  few  fine  writers  of 
our  times  who  could  make  a  better  book  on  such  a  sub- 
ject to-day,  —  with  all  the  added  information,  and  all 
the  practice  of  the  newspaper-columns.  "What  Walton 
wants  to  say  he  says.  You  can  make  no  mistake  about 
his  meaning ;  all  is  as  lucid  as  the  water  of  a  spring. 
He  does  not  play  upon  your  wonderment  with  tropes. 
There  is  no  chicane  of  the  pen  ;  he  has  some  pleasant 
matters  to  tell  of,  and  he  tells  of  them  —  straight. 

Another  great  charm  about  Walton  is  his  childlike 
truthfulness.  I  think  he  is  almost  the  only  earnest 
trout -fisher  I  ever  knew  (unless  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
be  excepted)  whose  report  could  be  relied  upon  for  the 
weight  of  a  trout.  I  have  many  excellent  friends  — 
capital  fishermen  —  whose  word  is  good  upon  most 
concerns  of  life,  but  in  this  one  thing  they  cannot  be 
confided  in.  I  excuse  it ;  I  take  off  twenty  per  cent, 
from  their  estimates  without  either  hesitation,  anger,  or 
reluctance. ' 

I  do  not  think  I  should  have  tmsted  in  such  a  mat- 
ter Charles  Cotton,  although  he  was  agricultural  as 
well  as  piscatory,  —  having  published  a  "  Planter's 
Manual."  I  think  he  could,  and  did,  draw  a  long  bow. 
I  suspect  innocent  milkmaids  were  not  in  the  habit  of 
singing  Kit  Marlowe's  songs  to  the  worshipful  Mr. 
Cotton. 


184  WET  DAYS. 

One  pastoral  remains  to  mention,  published  at  the 
very  opening  of  the  year  1600,  and  spending  its  fine 
forest-aroma  thenceforward  all  down  the  century.  I 
mean  Shakspeare's  play  of  "  As  You  Like  It." 

From  beginning  to  end  the  grand  old  forest  of 
Arden  is  astir  overhead  ;  from  beginning  to  end  the 
brooks  brawl  in  your  ear;  from  beginning  to  end 
you  smell  the  bruised  ferns  and  the  delicate-scented 
wood-flowers.  It  is  Theocritus  again,  with  the  civiliza- 
tion of  the  added  centuries  contributing  its  spangles  of 
reason,  philosophy,  and  grace.  Who  among  all  the 
short-kirtled  damsels  of  all  the  eclogues  will  match  us 
this  fair,  lithe,  witty,  capricious,  mirthful,  buxom  Rosa- 
lind ?  Nowhere  in  books  have  we  met  with  her  like,  — 
but  only  at  some  long-gone  picnic  in  the  woods,  where 
we  worshipped  "  blushing  sixteen  "  in  dainty  boots  and 
white  muslin.  There,  too,  we  met  a  match  for  sighing 
Orlando,  —  mirrored  in  the  water ;  there,  too,  some 
diluted  Jaques  may  have  "  moralized  "  the  excursion  for 
next  day's  "  Courier,"  and  some  lout  of  a  Touchstone 
(there  are  always  such  in  picnics)  passed  the  ices, 
made  poor  puns,  and  won  more  than  his  share  of  the 
smiles. 

Walton  is  English  all  over ;  but  "  As  You  Like  It " 
is  as  broad  as  the  sky,  or  love,  or  folly,  or  hope. 


SIXTH  DAY. 


A  British  Tavern. 

IT  is  a  pelting  November  rain.  No  leaves  are  left 
upon  the  branches  save  a  few  yellow  flatterers  on 
the  tips  of  the  willows  and  poplars,  and  the  bleached 
company  that  will  be  clinging  to  the  beeches  and  the 
white-oaks  for  a  month  to  come.  All  others  are 
whipped  away  by  the  night-winds  into  the  angles  of 
old  walls,  or  are  packed  under  low-limbed  shrubberies, 
there  to  swelter  and  keep  warm  the  rootlets  of  the 
newly  planted  weigelias  and  spruces,  until  the  snows 
and  February  suns  and  April  mists  and  May  heats 
shall  have  transmuted  them  into  fat  and  unctuous 
mould.  A  close,  pelting,  unceasing  rain,  trying  all  the 
leaks  of  the  mossy  roof,  testing  all  the  newly  laid 
drains,  pressing  the  fountain  at  my  door  to  an  exuber- 
ant gush,  —  a  rain  that  makes  outside  work  an  impos- 
sibility; and  as  I  sit  turning  over  the  leaves  of  an  old 
book  of  engravings,  wondering  what  drift  my  rainy- 


ISfi  WET  DAYS. 

day's  task  shall  take,  I  come  upon  a  pleasant  view  of 
Dovedale  in  Derbyshire,  a  little  exaggerated,  perhaps, 
in  the  luxuriance  of  its  trees  and  the  depth  of  its 
shadows,  but  recalling  vividly  the  cloudy  April  morn- 
ing on  which,  fifteen  years  agone,  I  left  the  inn  of  the 
"  Green  Man  and  Black's  Head,"  in  the  pretty  town  of 
Ashbourne,  and  strolled  away  by  the  same  road  on 
which  Mr.  Charles  Cotton  opens  his  discourse  of  fish- 
ing with  Master  "  Viator,"  and  plunged  down  the  steep 
valley-side  near  to  Thorpe,  and  wandered  for  three 
miles  and  more,  under  towering  crags,  and  on  soft, 
spongy  bits  of  meadow,  beside  the  blithe  river  where 
Walton  had  cast,  in  other  days,  a  gray  palmer-fly, — 
past  the  hospitable  hall  of  the  worshipful  Mr.  Cotton, 
and  the  wreck  of  the  old  fishing-house,  over  whose 
lintel  was  graven  in  the  stone  the  interlaced  initials  of 
"  Piscator,  Junior,"  and  his  great  master  of  the  rod.  As 
the  rain  began  to  patter  on  the  sedges  and  the  pools,  I 
climbed  out  of  the  valley,  on  the  northward  or  Derby- 
shire side,  and  striding  away  through  the  heather, 
which  belongs  to  the  rolling  heights  of  this  region,  I 
presently  found  myself  upon  the  great  London  and 
Manchester  highway.  A  broad  and  stately  thorough- 
fare it  had  been  in  the  old  days  of  coaching  ;  but  now  a 
close,  fine  turf  invested  it  all,  save  one  narrow  strip  of 
Macadam  in  the  middle.  The  mile-stones,  which  hnd 
been  showy,  painted  affairs  of  iron,  v.-c-re  now  dec-ply 


A  BRITISH  TAVERN.  187 

bitten  and  blotched  with  rust.  Two  of  them  I  had 
passed,  without  sight  of  house  or  of  other  traveller, 
save  one  belated  drover,  who  was  hurrying  to  the  fair 
at  Ashbourne ;  as  I  neared  the  third,  a  great  hulk  of 
building  appeared  upon  my  left,  with  a  crowd  of  aspir- 
ing chimneys,  from  which  only  one  timid  little  pennant 
of  smoke  coiled  into  the  harsh  sky. 

The  gray,  inhospitable-looking  pile  proved  to  be  one 
of  the  old  coach-inns,  which,  with  its  score  of  vacant 
chambers  and  huge  stable-court,  was  left  stranded  upon 
the  deserted  highway  of  travel.  It  stood  a  little  space 
back  from  the  road,  so  that  a  coach  and  four,  or,  in- 
deed, a  half-dozen  together,  might  have  come  up  to 
the  door-way  in  dashing  style.  But  it  must  have  been 
many  years  since  such  a  demand  had  been  made  upon 
the  resources  of  bustling  landlord  and  of  attendant 
grooms  and  waiters.  The  doors  were  tightly  closed  ; 
even  the  sign-board  creaked  uneasily  in  the  wind,  and 
a  rampant  growth  of  ivy  that  clambered  over  the  porch 
so  covered  it  with  leaves  and  berries  that  I  could  not 
at  all  make  out  its  burden.  I  gave  a  sharp  ring  to  the 
bell,  and  heard  the  echo  repeated  from  the  deserted 
stable-court ;  there  was  the  yelp  of  a  hound  somewhere 
within,  and  presently  a  slatternly-dressed  woman  re- 
ceived me,  and,  conducting  me  down  a  bare  hall, 
showed  me  into  a  great  dingy  parlor,  where  a  murky 
fire  was  struggling  in  the  grate.  A  score  of  roistering 


188  WET  DAYS. 

travellers  might  have  made  the  stately  parlor  gay ;  and 
I  dare  say  they  did,  in  years  gone  ;  but  now  I  had  only 
for  company  —  their  heavy  old  arm-chairs,  a  few  prints 
of  "  fast  coaches  "  upon  the  wall,  and  a  superannuated 
greyhound,  who  seemed  to  scent  the  little  meal  I  had 
ordered,  and  presently  stalked  in  and  laid  his  thin  nose, 
with  an  appealing  look,  in  my  hands.  His  days  of 
coursing  —  if  he  ever  had  them  —  were  fairly  over ; 
and  I  took  a  charitable  pride  in  bestowing  upon  him 
certain  tough  morsels  of  the  rump-steak,  garnished  with 
horse-radish,  with  which  I  was  favored  for  dinner. 

I  had  intended  to  push  on  to  Buxton  the  same  after- 
noon ;  but  the  deliberate  sprinkling  of  the  morning 
had  quickened  by  two  o'clock  into  a  swift,  pelting 
rain,  the  very  counterpart  of  that  which  is  beating  on 
my  windows  to-day.  These  was  nothing  to  be  done 
but  to  make  my  home  of  the  old  coach-inn  for  the 
night ;  and  for  my  amusement  —  besides  the  slumber- 
ous hound,  who,  after  dinner,  had  taken  up  position 
upon  the  faded  rug  lying  before  the  grate  —  there  was 
a  "  Bell's  Messenger  "  of  the  month  past,  and,  as  good 
luck  would  have  it,  a  much-bethumbed  copy  of  a  work 
on  horticulture  and  kindred  subjects,  first  printed  some- 
where about  the  beginning  of  the  eighteenth  century, 
and  entitled  "  The  Clergyman's  Recreation,  showing 
the  Pleasure  and  Profit  of  the  Art  of  Gardening,"  by 
the  Reverend  John  Laurence. 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GARDENERS.  189 

It  was  a  queer  book  to  be  found  in  this  pretentious 
old  coach-inn,  with  its  silken  bell-pulls  and  stately  par- 
lors ;  and  I  thought  how  the  roisterers  who  came  thun- 
dering over  the  road  years  ago,  and  chucked  the  bar- 
maids under  the  chin,  must  have  turned  up  their  noses, 
after  their  pint  of  crusted  Port,  at  the  "  Clergyman's 
Recreation."  Yet,  for  all  that,  the  book  had  a  rare  in- 
terest for  me,  detailing,  as  it  did,  the  methods  of  fruit- 
culture  in  England  a  hundred  and  forty  years  ago,  and 
showing  with  nice  particularity  how  the  espaliers  could 
be  best  trained,  and  how  a  strong  infusion  of  walnut- 
leaf  tea  will  destroy  all  noxious  worms. 

And  now,  when,  upon  this  other  wet  day,  and  in  the 
quietude  of  my  own  library,  I  come  to  measure  the 
claims  of  this  ancient  horticulturist  to  consideration,  I 
find  tVjat  he  was  the  author  of  some  six  or  seven  dis- 
tinct works  on  kindred  subjects,  showing  good  knowl- 
edge of  the  best  current  practice  ;  and  although  he  in- 
curred the  sneers  of  Mr.  Tull,  who  hoped  "  he  preached 
better  than  he  ploughed,"  there  is  abundant  evidence 
that  his  books  were  held  in  esteem. 


Early  English  Gardeners, 

CONTEMPORARY  with  the  Rev.  Mr.  Laurence 
^-^  were  London  and  Wise,  the  famous  horticulturists 
of  Brompton.  (whose  nursery,  says  Evelyn,  "  was  the 


190  WET  DAYS. 

greatest  work  of  the  kind  ever  seen  or  heard  of,  either 
in  books  or  travels,")  also  Switzer,  a  pupil  of  the  latter, 
and  Professor  Richard  Bradley. 

Mr.  London  was  the  director  of  the  royal  gardens 
under  William  and  Mary,  and  at  one  time  had  in  his 
charge  some  three  or  four  hundred  of  the  most  consid- 

O 

erable  landed  estates  in  England.  He  was  in  the  habit 
of  riding  some  fifty  miles  a  day  to  confer  with  his  sub- 
ordinate gardeners,  and  at  least  two  or  three  times  in 
a  season  traversed  the  whole  length  and  breadth  of 
England,  —  and  this  at  a  period,  it  must  be  remem- 
bered, when  travelling  was  no  holiday-affair,  as  is  evi- 
dent from  the  mishaps  which  befell  those  well-known 
contemporaneous  travellers  of  Fielding,  —  Joseph  An- 
drews and  Parson  Adams.  Traces  of  the  work  of 
Mr.  London  are  to  be  seen  even  now  in  the  older  parts 
of  the  grounds  of  Blenheim  and  of  Castle  Howard  in 
Yorkshire. 

Stephen  Switzer  was  an  accomplished  gardener,  well 
known  by  a  great  many  horticultural  and  agricultural 
works,  which  in  his  day  were  "  on  sale  at  his  seed-shop 
in  "Westminster  Hall."  Chiefest  among  these  was  the 
"  Ichnographia  Rustica,"  which  gave  general  direc- 
tions for  the  management  of  country-estates,  while  it 
indulged  in  some  prefatory  magniloquence  upon  the 
dignity  and  antiquity  of  the  art  of  gardening.  It  is 
the  first  of  all  arts,  he  claims ;  for  "  tho'  Chirurgerj* 


EARLY  ENGLISH  GARDENERS.  191 

may  plead  high,  inasmuch  as  in  the  second  chapter  of 
Genesis  that  operation  is  recorded  of  taking  the  rib 
from  Adam,  wherewith  woman  was  made,  yet  the  very 
current  of  the  Scriptures  determines  in  favor  of  Gar- 
dening." It  surprises  us  to  find  that  so  radical  an  in- 
vestigator should  entertain  the  belief,  as  he  clearly  did, 
that  certain  plants  were  produced  without  seed  by  the 
vegetative  power  of  the  sun  acting  upon  the  earth. 
He  is  particularly  severe  upon  those  Scotch  gardeners, 
"  Northern  lads,"  who,  with  "  a  little  learning  and  a 
great  deal  of  impudence,  know,  or  pretend  to  know, 
more  in  one  twelvemonth  than  a  laborious,  honest 
South-country  man  does  in  seven  years." 

His  agricultural  observations  are  of  no  special  value, 
nor  do  they  indicate  any  advance  from  the  practice  of 
Worlidge.  He  deprecates  paring  and  burning  as  ex- 
haustive of  the  vegetable  juices,  advises  winter  fallow- 
ing and  marling,  and  affirms  that  "  there  is  no  super- 
ficies of  earth,  how  poor  soever  it  may  be,  but  has  in 
its  own  bowels  something  or  other  for  its  own  improve- 
ment" 

In  gardening,  he  expresses  great  contempt  for  the 
clipped  trees  and  other  excesses  of  the  Dutch  school, 
yet  advises  the  construction  of  terraces,  lays  out  his 
ponds  by  geometric  formulae,  and  is  so  far  devoted  to 
out-of-door  sculpture  as  to  urge  the  establishment  of  a 
royal  institution  for  the  instruction  of  ingenious  young 


192  WET  DAYS. 

men,  who,  on  being  taken  into  the  service  of  noblemen 
and  gentlemen,  would  straightway  people  their  grounds 
with  statues.  And  this  notwithstanding  Addison  had 
published  his  famous  papers  on  the  "  Pleasures  of  the 
Imagination  "  three  years  before.* 

Richard  Bradley  was  the  Dr.  Lardner  of  his  day,  —  a 
man  of  general  scientific  acquirement,  an  indefatigable 
worker,  venturing  hazardous  predictions,  writing  some 
fifteen  or  twenty  volumes  upon  subjects  connected  with 
agriculture,  foisting  himself  into  the  chair  of  Botany 
at  Cambridge  by  noisy  reclamation,  selling  his  name  to 
the  booksellers  for  attachment  to  other  men's  wares,f 
and,  finally,  only  escaping  the  indignity  of  a  removal 
from  his  professor's  chair  by  sudden  death,  in  1732. 
Yet  this  gentleman's  botanical  dictionary  ("  Historia 
Plantarum,"  etc.)  was  quoted  respectfully  by  Linnaeus, 
and  his  account  of  British  cattle,  their  races,  proper 
treatment,  etc.,  was,  by  all  odds,  the  best  which  had 
appeared  up  to  his  time.  The  same  gentleman,  in  his 
"  New  Improvements  of  Planting  and  Gardening,"  lays 
great  stress  upon  a  novel  "  invention  for  the  more 
speedy  designing  of  garden-plats,"  which  is  nothing 
more  than  an  adaptation  of  the  principle  of  the  kalei 

*  The  Spectators  414  and  477,  which  urge  particularly  a  better 
taste  in  gardening,  are  dated  1712;  and  the  first  volume  of  the  Ich- 
iwynipltia  (under  a  different  name,  indeed)  appeared  in  1715. 

t  This  is  averred  of  the  translation  of  the  (Economics  of  Xeno- 
phon,  before  cited  in  these  papers,  and  published  under  Professoi 
liraillev's  name. 


EARLY   ENGLISH   GARDENERS.  193 

doscope.  The  latter  book  is  the  sole  representative 
of  this  author's  voluminous  agricultural  works  in  the 
Astor  collection ;  and,  strange  to  say,  there  are  only 
two  (if  we  may  believe  Mr.  Donaldson)  in  the  library 
of  the  British  Museum. 

I  take,  on  this  dreary  November  day,  (with  my  Ca- 
tawbas  blighted,)  a  rather  ill-natured  pleasure  in  read- 
ing how  the  Duke  of  Rutland,  in  the  beginning  of 
the  last  century,  was  compelled  to  "  keep  up  fires  from 
Lady-day  to  Michaelmas  behind  his  sloped  walls,"  in 
order  to  insure  the  ripening  of  his  grapes ;  yet  winter 
grapes  he  had,  and  it  was  a  great  boast  in  that  time. 
The  quiet  country  -  squires  —  such  as  Sir  Roger  de 
Coverley  —  had  to  content  themselves  with  those  old- 
fashioned  fruits  which  would  struggle  successfully  with 
out-of-door  fogs.  Fielding  tells  us  that  the  garden  of . 
Mr.  Wilson,  where  Parson  Adams  and  the  divine 
Fanny  were  guests,  sliowed  nothing  more  rare  than  an 
alley  bordered  with  filbert-bushes.* 

In  London  and  its  neighborhood  the  gourmands  fared 
better.  Cucumbers,  which  in  Charles's  time  never  came 
in  till  the  close  of  May,  were  ready  in  the  shops  of 
Westminster  (in  the  tune  of  George  I.)  in  early  March. 
Melons  were  on  sale,  for  those  who  could  pay  roundly, 
at  the  end  of  April ;  and  tjie  season  of  cauliflowers," 

*  Joseph  Andrews,  Bk.  III.  ch.  4,  where  Fielding,  thief  that  he  was, 
appropriates  the  story  that  Xenophon  tells  of  Cyrus. 
13 


194  WET  DAYS. 

which  used  to  be  limited  to  a  single  month,  now  reached 
over  a  term  of  six  months. 

Mr.  Pope,  writing  to  Dr.  Swift,  somewhere  about  1 730, 
says,  —  "I  have  more  fruit  -  trees  and  kitchen  -  garden 
than  you  have  any  thought  of;  nay,  I  have  good  melons 
and  pine-apples  of  my  own  growth."  Nor  was  this  a 
small  boast;  for  Lady  Wortley  Montague,  describing 
her  entertainment  at  the  table  of  the  Elector  of  Han- 
over, in  1716,  speaks  of  "pines"  as  a  fruit  she  had 
never  seen  before. 

Ornamental  gardening,  too,  was  now  changing  its 
complexion.  Dutch  William  was  dead  and  buried. 
Addison  had  written  in  praise  of  the  natural  disposition 
of  the  gardens  of  Fontainebleau,  and,  at  his  place  near 
Rugby,  was  carrying  out,  so  far  as  a  citizen  njight,  the 
suggestions  of  those  papers  to  which  I  have  already 
alluded.  Milton  was  in  better  odor  than  he  had  been, 
and  people  had  begun  to  realize  that  an  arch-Puritan 
might  have  exquisite  taste.  Possibly,  too,  cultivated 
landholders  had  seen  that  charming  garden  -  picture 
where  the  luxurious  Tasso  makes  the  pretty  sorceress 
Armida  spread  her  nets. 

Pope  affected  a  respect  for  the  views  of  Addison; 
but  his  Twickenham  garden  was  a  very  stiff  affair. 
•Bridgman  was  the  first  practical  landscape-gardener 
who  ventured  to  ignore  old  rules ;  and  he  was  followed 
closely  by  William  Kent,  a  broken-down  and  unsuccess- 


JETHRO   TULL.  195 

ful  landscape-painter,  who  came  into  such  vogue  as  a 
man  of  taste  that  he  was  employed  to  fashion  the  furni- 
ture of  scores  of  country-villas  ;  and  Walpole  *  tells  us 
that  he  was  even  beset  by  certain  fine  ladies  to  design 
Birthday  gowns  for  them :  —  "  The  one  he  dressed  in 
a  petticoat  decorated  with  columns  of  the  five  orders ; 
the  other,  like  a  bronze,  in  a  copper-colored  satin,  with 
ornaments  of  gold." 

Clermont,  the  charming  home  of  the  exiled  Orleans 
family,  shows  vestiges  of  the  taste  of  Kent,  who  always 
accredited  very  much  of  his  love  for  the  picturesque  to 
the  reading  of  Spenser.  It  is  not  often  that  the  poet 
of  the  "  Fairy  Queene  "  is  mentioned  as  an  educator. 

Jethro  Tull 

AND  now  let  us  leave  gardens  for  a  while,  to  dis- 
cuss Mr.  Jethro  Tull,  the  great  English  cultivator 
of  the  early  half  of  the  eighteenth  century.  I  suspect 
that  most  of  the  gentry  of  his  time,  and  cultivated  peo- 
ple, ignored  Mr.  Tull,  —  he  was  so  rash  and  so  head- 
strong and  so  noisy.  It  is  certain,  too,  that  the  edu- 
cated farmers,  or,  more  strictly,  the  writing  farmers, 
opened  battle  upon  him,  and  used  all  their  art  to  ward 
off  his  radical  tilts  upon  their  old  methods  of  culture. 
And  he  fought  back  bravely ;  I  really  do  not  think  that 

*  Works  of  Earl  of  Orford,  Vol.  III.  p.  490. 


196  WET  DAYS. 

an  editor  of  a  partisan  paper  to-day  could  improve  upon 
him,  —  in  vigor,  in  personality,  or  in  coarseness.  - 

Unfortunately,  the  biographers  and  encyclopaedists 
who  followed  upon  his  period  have  treated  his  name 
with  a  neglect  that  leaves  but  scanty  gleanings  for  his 
personal  history.  His  father  owned  landed  property 
in  Oxfordshire,  and  Jethro  was  a  University-man  ;  he 
studied  for  the  law,  (which  will  account  for  his  address 
in  a  wordy  quarrel,)  made  the  tour  of  Europe,  returned 
to  Oxfordshire,  married,  took  the  paternal  homestead, 
and  proceeded  to  carry  out  the  new  notions  which  he 
had  gained  in  his  Southern  travels.  Ill  health  drove 
him  to  France  a  second  time,  whence  he  returned  once 
more,  to  occupy  the  famous  "  Prosperous  Farm "  in 
Berkshire  ;  and  here  he  opened  his  batteries  afresh 
upon  the  existing  methods  of  farming.  The  gist  of  his 
proposed  reform  is  expressed  in  the  title  of  his  book, 
"  The  Horse-hoeing  Husbandry."  He  believed  in  the 
thorough  tillage,  at  frequent  intervals,  of  all  field-crops, 
from  wheat  to  turnips.  To  make  this  feasible,  drilling 
was,  of  course,  essential ;  and  to  make  it  economical, 
horse-labor  was  requisite :  the  drill  and  the  horse-hoe 
were  only  subsidiary  to  the  main  end  of  THOROUGH 

TILLAGE. 

Sir  Hugh  Platt,  as  we  have  seen,  had  before  sug- 
gested dibbling,  and  Worlidge  had  contrived  a  drill; 
but  Tull  gave  force  and  point  and  practical  efficacy  to 


JETHRO  TULL.  197 

their  suggestions.  He  gives  no  credit,  indeed,  to  these 
old  gentlemen  ;  and  it  is  quite  possible  that  his  theory 
may  have  been  worked  out  from  his  own  observations. 
He  certainly  gives  a  clear  account  of  the  growth  of  his 
belief,  and  sustains  it  by  a  great  many  droll  notions 
about  the  physiology  of  plants,  which  would  hardly  be 
admissible  in  the  botanies  of  to-day. 

Shall  I  give  a  sample  ? 

"  Leaves,"  he  says,  "  are  the  parts,  or  bowels  of  a 
plant,  which  perform  the  same  office  to  sap  as  the  lungs 
of  an  animal  do  to  blood ;  that  is,  they  purify  or  cleanse 
it  of  the  recrements,  or  fuliginous  steams,  received  in  the 
circulation,  being  the  unfit  parts  of  the  food,  and  per- 
haps some  decayed  particles  which  fly  off  the  vessels 
through  which  blood  and  sap  do  pass  respectively." 

It  does  not  appear  that  the  success  of  Tull  upon 
"  Prosperous  Farm  "  was  such  as  to  give  a  large  war- 
rant for  its  name.  His  enemies,  indeed,  alleged  that 
he  came  near  to  sinking  two  estates  on  his  system ;  this, 
however,  he  stoutly  denies,  and  says,  "I  propose  no 
more  than  to  keep  out  of  debt,  and  leave  my  estate  be- 
hind me  better  than  I  found  it  Yet,  owned  it  must  be, 
that,  had  I,  when  I  first  began  to  make  trials,  known 
as  much  of  the  system  as  I  do  now,  the  practice  of  it 
would  have  been  more  profitable  to  me."  Farmers  in 
other  parts  of  England,  with  lands  better  adapted  to 
the  new  husbandry,  certainly  availed  themselves  of  it, 


198  WET  DAYS. 

very  much  to  their  advantage.  Tull,  like  a  great  many 
earnest  reformers,  was  almost  always  in  difficulty  with 
those  immediately  dependent  on  him  ;  over  and  over  he 
insists  upon  the  "  inconveniency  and  slavery  attending 
the  exorbitant  power  of  husbandry  servants  and  labor- 
ers over  their  masters."  He  quarrels  with  their  wages, 
and  with  the  short  period  of  their  labor.  Pray,  what 
would  Mr.  Tull  have  thought,  if  he  had  dealt  with  the 
Drogheda  gentlemen  in  black  satin  waistcoats,  who  are 
to  be  conciliated  by  the  farmers  of  to-day  ? 

I  think  I  can  fancy  such  an  encounter  for  the  quer- 
ulous old  reformer.  "  Mike  !  blast  you,  you  booby, 
you  've  broken  my  drill ! "  And  Mike,  (putting  his 
thumb  deliberately  in  the  armlet  of  his  waistcoat,) 
"  Meester  Tull,  it 's  not  the  loikes  o'  me  '11  be  leestening 
to  insoolting  worrds.  I  '11  take  me  money,  if  ye  plase." 
And  with  what  a  fury  "Meester"  Tull  would  have 
slashed  away,  after  this,  at  "Equivocus,"  and  all  his 
newspaper-antagonists  ! 

I  wish  I  could  believe  that  Tull  always  told  the  exact 
truth  ;  but  he  gives  some  accounts  of  the  perfection  to 
which  he  had  brought  his  drill  *  to  which  I  can  lend 
only  a  most  meagre  trust ;  and  it  is  unquestionable  that 
his  theory  so  fevered  his  brain  at  last  as  to  make  him 
utterly  contemptuous  of  all  old-fashioned  methods  of 
procedure.  In  this  respect  he  was  not  alone  among 
*.See  Chap.  VII.  p.  104,  Cobbett's  edition. 


JETHRO   TULL.  199 

reformers.  He  stoutly  affirmed  that  tillage  would  supply 
the  lack  of  manure,  and  his  neighbors  currently  reported 
that  he  was  in  the  habit  of  dumping  his  manure-carts 
in  the  river.  This  charge  Mr.  Tull  firmly  denied,  and 
I  dare  say  justly.  But  I  can  readily  believe  that  the 
rumors  were  current ;  country-neighborhoods  offer  good 
starting-points  for  such  lively  scandal.  The  writer  of 
this  book  has  heard,  on  the  best  possible  authority,  that 
he  is  in  the  habit  of  planting  shrubs  with  their  roots  in 
the  air. 

In  his  loose,  disputative  way,  and  to  magnify  the  im- 
portance of  his  own  special  doctrine,  Tull  affirms  that 
the  ancients,  and  Virgil  particularly,  urged  tillage  for  the 
simple  purpose  of  destroying"  weeds.*  In  this  it  seems 
to  me  that  he  does  great  injustice  to  our  old  friend 
Maro.  Will  the  reader  excuse  a  moment's  dalliance 
with  the  Georgics  again  ? 

"  Multum  adeo,  rastris  glebas  qoifranyii  inertet, 
Vimineasque  trahit  crates,  juvatarva;  .... 
Et  qui  proscisso  quse  suscitat  sequore  terga 
Rursus  in  obliquum  verso  perrumpit  aratro, 
Exercetque  frequens  tellurem,  atquc  imperat  arvis."  t 

That  "imperat"  looks    like  something    more   than 

*  Chap.  IX.  p.  136,  Cobbett's  edition. 

t  "  He  does  his  land  great  service  who  breaks  the  sluggish  clods  witL 
harrows,  and  drags  over  them  the  willow  hurdles ;  .  .  .  .  who  tears 
up  the  ridges  of  his  furrowed  plain,  and  ploughs  crosswise,  and  over 
and  over  again  stirs  his  field,  and  with  masterly  hand  subdues  it." 


200  WET  DAYS. 

weed-killing  ;  it  looks  like  subjugation ;  it  looks  like 
pulverization  at  the  hands  of  an  imperious  master. 

But  behind  all  of  Tull's  exaggerated  pretension,  and 
unaffected  by  the  noisy  exacerbation  of  his  speech, 
there  lay  a  sterling  good  sense,  and  a  clear  comprehen- 
sion of  the  existing  shortcomings  in  agriculture,  which 
gave  to  his  teachings  prodigious  force,  and  an  influence 
measured  only  by  half  a  century  of  years.  There  were 
few,  indeed,  who  adopted  literally  and  fully  his  plans^  or 
who  had  the  hardihood  to  acknowledge  the  irate  Jethro 
as  a  safe  and  practical  teacher ;  yet  his  hints  and  his 
example  gave  a  stimulus  to  root-culture,  and  an  atten- 
tion to  the  benefits  arising  from  thorough  and  repeated 
tillage,  that  added  vastly  to  the  annual  harvests  of  Eng- 
land. Bating  the  exaggerations  I  have  alluded  to,  his 
views  are  still  reckoned  sound ;  and  though  a  hoed  crop 
of  wheat  is  somewhat  exceptional,  the  drill  is  now  al- 
most universal  in  the  best  cultivated  districts  of  Great 
Britain  and  the  Continent;  and  a  large  share  of  the 
forage-crops  owe  their  extraordinary  burden  to  horse- 
hoeing  husbandry. 

Even  the  exaggerated  claims  of  Tull  have  had  their 
advocates  in  these  last  days ;  and  the  energetic  farmer 
of  Lois-Weedon,  in  Northamptonshire,  is  reported  to 
be  growing  heavy  crops  of  wheat  for  a  succession  of 
years,  without  any  supply  of  outside  fertilizers,  and  rely- 
ing wholly  upon  repeated  and  perfect  pulverization  of 


JETHRO   TULL.  201 

the  soil.*  And  Mr.  Way,  the  distinguished  chemist  of 
the  Royal  Society,  in  a  paper  on  "  The  Power  of  Soils  to 
absorb  Manure,"  f  propounds  the  question  as  follows :  — 
"  Is  it  likely,  on  theoretical  considerations,  that  the  air 
and  the  soil  together  can  by  any  means  be  made  to 
yield,  without  the  application  of  manure,  and  year  after 
year  continuously,  a  crop  of  wheat  of  from  thirty  to 
thirty-five  bushels  per  acre  ?  "  And  his  reply  is  this  :  — 
"  I  confess  I  do  not  see  why  they  should  not  do  so." 
A  practical  fanner,  however,  (who  spends  only  his  wet 
days  in-doors,)  would  be  very  apt  to  suggest  here,  that 
the  validity  of  this  dictum  must  depend  very  much  on 
the  original  constituents  of  the  soil. 

Under  the  lee  of  the  Coombe  Hills,  on  the  extreme 
southern  edge  of  Berkshire,  and  not  far  removed  from 
the  great  highway  leading  from  Bath  to  London,  lies 
the  farmery  where  this  restless,  petulant,  suffering,  ear- 
nest, clear-sighted  Tull  put  down  the  burden  of  life,  a 
hundred  and  twenty  years  ago.  The  house  is  unfortu- 
nately largely  modernized,  but  many  of  the  out-build- 
ings remain  unchanged ;  and  not  a  man  thereabout,  or 
in  any  other  quarter,  could  tell  me  where  the  former 
occupant,  who  fought  so  bravely  his  fierce  battle  of  the 
drill,  lies  buried. 

*  It  is  to  be  remarked,  however,  that  the  Rev.  Mr.  Smith,  (farmer 
of  Lois-Weedon,)  by  the  distribution  of  his  crop,  avaiK  himself  virtu- 
ally of  a  clean  fallow,  every  alternate  year. 

\    Transactions,  Vol.  XXX.  p.  140. 


202  WET  DAYS. 

Hanbury  and  Lancelot  Brown. 

A  BOUT  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  there  lived 
"*~^  in  the  south  of  Leicestershire,  in  the  parish  of 
Church-Langton,  an  eccentric  and  benevolent  clergy- 
man by  the  name  of  William  Hanbury,  who  conceived 
the  idea  of  establishing  a  great  charity  which  was  to  be 
supported  by  a  vast  plantation  of  trees.  To  this  end, 
he  imported  a  great  variety  of  seeds  and  plants  from 
the  Continent  and  America,  established  a  nursery  of 
fifty  acres  in  extent,  and  published  "An  Essay  on 
Planting,  and  a  Scheme  to  make  it  Conducive  to  thn 
Glory  of  God  and  the  Advantage  of  Society." 

But  the  Reverend  Hanbury  was  beset  by  aggressive 
and  cold-hearted  neighbors,  —  among  them  two  strange 
old  "gentlewomen,"  Mistress  Pickering  and  Mistress 
Byrd,  who  malevolently  ordered  their  cattle  to  be 
turned  loose  into  his  first  plantation  of  twenty  thousand 
young  and  thrifty  trees.  And  not  content  with  this, 
they  served  twenty-seven  different  copies  of  writs  upon 
him  in  one  day,  for  trespass.  Of  all  this  he  gives  de- 
tailed account  in  his  curious  history  of  the  "  Charitable 
Foundations  at  Church-Langton."  He  tells  us  that  the 
"  venomous  rage  "  of  these  old  ladies  (who  died  shortly 
after,  worth  a  million  of  dollars)  did  not  even  spare  his 
dogs ;  but  that  his  pet  spaniel  and  greyhound  were 
cruelly  killed  by  a  table-fork  thrust  into  their  entrails. 


H ANBURY  AND  LANCELOT  BROWN.        203 

Nay,  their  game-keeper  even  buried  two  dogs  alive, 
•which  belonged  to  his  neighbor,  Mr.  Wade,  a  substan- 
tial grazier.  His  story  of  it  is  very  Defoe-like  and  piti- 
ful :  —  "I  myself  heard  them,"  he  says,  "  ten  days  after 
they  had  been  buried,  and,  seeing  some  people  at  a  dis- 
tance, inquired  what  dogs  they  were.  'They  are  some 
dogs  that  are  lost,  Sir,'  said  they ;  '  they  have  been  lost 
some  time.'  I  concluded  only  some  poachers  had  been 
there  early  in  the  morning,  and  by  a  precipitate  flight 
had  left  their  dogs  behind  them.  In  short,  the  howling 
and  barking  of  these  dogs  was  heard  for  near  three 
weeks,  when  it  ceased.  Mr.  Wade's  dogs  were  missing, 
but  he  could  not  suspect  those  dogs  to  be  his ;  and  the 
noise  ceasing,  the  thoughts,  wonder,  and  talking  about 
them  soon  also  ceased.  Some  tune  after,  a  person,  being 
amongst  the  bushes  where  the  howling  was  heard,  dis- 
covered some  disturbed  earth,  and  the  print  of  men's 
heels  ramming  it  down  again  very  close,  and,  seeing 
Mr.  Wade's  servant,  told  him  he  thought  something  had 
been  buried  there.  '  Then,'  said  the  man,  'it  is  our 
dogs,  and  they  have  been  buried  alive.  I  will  go  and  fetch 
a  spade,  and  will  find  them,  if  I  dig  all  Caudle  over' 
He  soon  brought  a  spade,  and  upon  removing  the  top 
earth,  came  to  the  blackthorns,  and  then  to  the  dogs, 
the  biggest  of  which  had  eat  the  loins,  and  greatest 
share  of  the  hind  parts,  of  the  little  one." 

The  strange  ladies  who  were  guilty  of  this  slaughter 


204  WET  DAYS. 

of  innocents  showed  "  a  dying  blaze  of  goodness  "  by 
bequeathing  twelve  thousand  pounds  to  charitable  soci- 
eties ;  and  "  thus  ended,"  says  Hanbury,  "  these  two 
poor,  unhappy,  uncharitable,  charitable  old  gentle- 
women." 

The  good  old  man  describes  the  beauty  of  plants 
and  trees  with  the  same  delightful  particularity  which 
he  spent  on  his  neighbors  and  the  buried  dogs. 

I  cannot  anywhere  learn  whether  or  not  the  charity- 
plantation  of  Church-Langton  is  still  thriving. 

About  this  very  time,  Lancelot  Brown,  who  was  for 
a  long  period  the  kitchen-gardener  at  Stowe,  came  into 
sudden  notoriety  by  his  disposition  of  the  waters  in 
Blenheim  Park,  where,  in  the  short  period  of  one 
week,  he  created  perhaps  the  finest  artificial  lake  in 
the  world.  Its  indentations  of  shore,  its  bordering 
declivities  of  wood,  and  the  graceful  swells  of  land 
dipping  to  its  margin,  remain  now  in  very  nearly  the 
same  condition  in  which  Brown  left  them  more  than  a 
hundred  years  ago.  All  over  England  the  new  man 
was  sent  for ;  all  over  England  he  rooted  out  the  mossy 
avenues,  and  the  sharp  rectangularities,  and  laid  down 
his  flowing  lines  of  walks,  and  of  trees.  He  (wisely) 
never  contracted  to  execute  his  own  designs,  and  — 
from  lack  of  facility,  perhaps  —  he  always  employed 
assistants  to  draw  his  plans.  But  the  quick  eye  which 
at  first  sight  recognized  the  "  capabilities  "  of  a  place, 


WILLIAM  SffENSTOXE.  205 

and  which  leaped  to  the  recognition  of  its  matnred 
graces,  was  all  his  own.  He  was  accused  of  sameness  ; 
but  the  man  who  at  one  time  held  a  thousand  lovely 
landscapes  unfolding  in  his  thought  could  hardly  give 
a  series  of  contrasts  without  startling  affectations. 

I  mention  the  name  of  Lancelot  Brown,  however, 
not  to  discuss  his  merits,  but  as  the  principal  and 
largest  illustrator  of  that  taste  in  landscape-gardening 
which  jxist  now  grew  up  in  England,  out  of  a  new 
reading  of  Milton,  out  of  the  admirable  essays  of  Ad- 
dison,  out  of  the  hints  of  Pope,  out  of  the  designs  of 
Kent,  and  which  was  stimulated  by  Gilpin,  by  Horace 
"Walpole,  and,  still  more,  by  the  delightful  little  land- 
scapes of  Gainsborough. 

William  Shenstone. 

T7INOUGH  will  be  found  of  Mr.  Brown,  and  of  his 
-*— ^  style,  in  the  professional  treatises,  upon  whose 
province  I  do  not  now  infringe.  I  choose  rather,  for 
the  entertainment  of  my  readers,  if  they  will  kindly 
find  it,  to  speak  of  that  sad,  exceptional  man,  Wil- 
liam Shenstone,  who,  by  the  beauties  which  he  made 
to  appear  on  his  paternal  farm  of  Leasowes,  fairly 
rivalled  the  best  of  the  landscape-gardeners,  —  and 
who,  by .  the  graces  and  the  tenderness  which  he  lav- 
ished on  his  verse,  made  no  mean  rank  for  himself  at  a 


206  WET  DAYS. 

time  when  people  were  reading  the  "  Elegy  "  of  Gray, 
the  Homer  of  Pope,  and  the  "  Cato  "  of  Addison. 

I  think  there  can  hardly  be  any  doubt,  however,  that 
poor  Shenstone  was  a  wretched  farmer  ;  yet  the  Leas- 
owes  was  a  capital  grazing  farm,  when  he  took  it  in 
charge,  within  fair  marketable  distance  of  both  Wor- 
cester and  Birmingham.  I  suspect  that  he  never  put 
his  fine  hands  to  the  plough-tail ;  and  his  plaintive 
elegy,  that  dates  from  an  April  day  of  1743,  tells,  I  am 
sure,  only  the  unmitigated  truth  :  — 

"Again  the  laboring  hind  inverts  the  soil ; 

Again  the  merchant  ploughs  the  tumid  wave; 
Another  spring  renews  the  soldier's  toil, 
And  finds  me  vacant  in  tJie  iiiral  cave.  " 

Shenstone,  like  many  another  of  the  lesser  poets, 
was  unfortunate  in  having  Dr.  Johnson  for  his  biogra- 
pher.* It  is  hard  to  conceive  of  a  man  who  would  show 
less  of  tenderness  for  an  elaborate  parterre  of  flowers, 
or  for  a  poet  who  affectedly  parted  his  gray  locks  on  one 

*  Mrs.  Piozzi  says,  "  He  [Dr.  Johnson]  hated  to  hear  about  pros- 
pects and  views,  and  laying  out  ground,  and  taste  in  gardening ;  — 
4  That  was  the  best  garden,'  he  said,  '  which  produced  most  roots  and 
fruits ;  and  that  water  was  most  to  be  prized  which  contained  most 
fish.1  Walking  in  a  wood  when  it  rained  was,  I  think,  the  only  rural 
image  which  pleased  his  fancy.  He  loved  the  sight  of  fine  forest- 
trees,  however,  and  detested  Brighthelmstone  Downs,  '  because  it  was 
a  country  so  truly  desolate,'  he  said,  '  that  if  one  had  a  mind  to  hang 
one's  self  for  desperation  at  being  obliged  to  live  there,  it  would  be 
difficult  to  find  a  tree  on  which  to  fasten  the  rope.'  "  — Croker's  Bos- 
well,  Vol.  II.  p.  209. 


WILLIAM  SHENSTONE  207 

side  of  his  head,  wore  a  crimson  waistcoat,  and  warbled 
in  anapaestics  about  kids  and  shepherds'  crooks.  Only 
fancy  the  great,  snuffy,  wheezing  Doctor,  with  his  hair- 
powder  whitening  half  his  shoulders,  led  up  before 
some  charming  little  extravaganza  of  Boucher,  wherein 
all  the  nymphs  are  simpering  marchionesses,  with  ro- 
settes on  their  high-heeled  slippers  that  out-color  the 
sky !  With  what  a  "  Faugh  !  "  the  great  gerund^ 
grinder  would  thump  his  cane  upon  the  floor,  and  go 
lumbering  away !  And  Shenstone,  or  rather  his  mem- 
ory, caught  the  besom  of  just  such  a  sneer. 

But  other  critics  were  more  kindly  and  appreciative ; 
among  them,  Dodsley  the  bookselling  author,  who 
wrote  "  The  Economy  of  Human  Life,"  *  (the  "  Pro- 
verbial Philosophy"  of  its  day,)  and  Whately,  who 
gave  to  the  public  the  most  elegant  and  tasteful  dis- 
cussion of  artificial  scenery  that  was  perhaps  ever 
written. 

Shenstone  studied,  as  much  as  so  indolent  a  man 
ever  could,  at  Pembroke  College,  Oxford.  His  parents 
died  when  he  was  young,  leaving  to  him  a  very  con- 
siderable estate,  which  fortunately  some  relative  ad- 
ministered for  him,  until,  owing  to  this  supervisor's 
death,  it  lapsed  into  the  poet's  improvident  hands. 
Even  then  a  sensible  tenant  of  his  own  name,  and  a 

*  Dodsley  was  also  the  author  of  a  stift'  and  unreadable  poem  on 
Agriculture." 


208  '    WET  DAYS. 

distant  relative,  managed  very  snugly  the  farm  of 
Leasowes  ;  but  when  Shenstone  came  to  live  with  him, 
neither  house  nor  grounds  were  large  enough  for  the 
joint  occupancy  of  the  poet,  who  was  trailing  his 
walks  through  the  middle  of  the  mowing,  and  of  the 
tenant,  who  had  his  beeves  to  fatten  and  his  rental  to 

pay- 
So  Shenstone  became  a  farmer  on  his  own  account ; 

and,  according  to  all  reports,  a  very  sorry  account  he 
made  of  it.  The  good  soul  had  none  of  Mr.  lull's 
petulance  and  audacity  with  his  servants;  if  the 
ploughman  broke  his  gear,  I  suspect  the  kind  bal- 
lad-master allowed  him  a  holiday  for  the  mending. 
The  herdsman  stared  in  astonishment  to  find  the 
"beasts"  ordered  away  from  their  accustomed  graz- 
ing-fields.  A  new  thicket  had  been  planted,  which 
must  not  be  disturbed ;  the  orchard  was  uprooted  to 
give  place  to  some  parterre ;  a  fine  bit  of  meadow  was 
flowed  with  a  miniature  lake ;  hedges  were  shorn  away 
without  mercy ;  arbors,  grottos,  rustic  seats,  Arcadian 
temples,  sprang  up  in  all  outlying  nooks ;  so  that  the 
annual  product  of  the  land  came  presently  to  be  lim- 
ited, almost  entirely,  to  the  beauty  of  its  disposition.* 

*  Repton  is  somewhat  severe  in  his  condemnation  of  Leasowes  and 
of  Shenstone's  taste,  not,  that  I  can  perceive,  because  he  objects  to 
errors  of  detail,  but  because  he  ignores  in  toto  the  practicability  of 
uniting  farm-culture  with  any  tasteful  management  of  landscape.  I 
have  no  doubt  that  Leasowes  was  a  wretchedly  managed  farm  eco- 


WILLIAM  SHENSTONE.  209 

I  think  that  the  poet,  unlike  most,  was  never  very 
thoroughly  satisfied  with  his  poems,  and  that,  therefore, 
the  vanity  possessed  him  to  vest  the  sense  of  beauty 
which  he  felt  tingling  in  his  blood  in  something  more 
palpable  than  language.  Hence  came  the  charming 
walks  and  woods  and  waters  of  Leasowes.  With  this 
ambition  holding  him  and  mastering  him,  what  mat- 
tered a  mouldy  grain-crop,  or  a  debt  ?  If  he  had  only 
an  ardent  admirer  of  his  walks,  his  wilderness,  his 
grottos,  —  this  was  his  customer.  He  longed  for  such, 
in  troops,  —  as  a  poet  longs  for  readers,  and  as  a  far- 
mer longs  for  sun  and  rain. 

And  he  had  them.  I  fancy  there  was  hardly  a  cul- 
tivated person  in  England,  but,  before  the  death  of 
Shenstone,  had  heard  of  the  rare  beauty  of  his  home 
of  Leasowes.  Lord  Lyttelton,  who  lived  near  by,  at 
the  elegant  seat  of  Hagley,  brought  over  his  guests 
to  see  what  miracles  the  hare-brained,  sensitive  poet 
had  wrought  upon  his  farm.  And  I  can  fancy  the 
proud,  shy  creature  watching  from  his  lattice  the  com- 
pany of  distinguished  guests,  —  maddened,  if  they  look 
at  his  alcove  from  the  wrong  direction,  —  wondering 
if  that  shout  that  comes  booming  to  his  sensitive  ear 
means  admiration,  or  only  an  unappreciative  surprise, 

nomically  speaking;  yet  I  see  no  reason  to  forbid  the  conjunction, 
under  proper  hands,  of  a  great  deal  of  landscape-beauty  with  a  profit- 
ably conducted  grazing-farm. 

14 


210  WET  DAYS. 

—  dwelling  on  the  memory  of  the  visit,  as  a  poet 
dwells  on  the  first  public  mention  of  his  poem.  In 
his  "  Egotisms,"  (well  named,)  he  writes,  —  "  "Why  re- 
pine ?  I  have  seen  mansions  on  the  verge  of  Wales 
that  convert  my  farm-house  into  a  Hampton  Court,  and 
where  they  speak  of  a  glazed  window  as  a  great  piece 
of  magnificence.  All  things  figure  by  comparison." 

And  this  reflection,  with  its  flavor  of  philosophy, 
was,  I  dare  say,  a  sweet  morsel  to  him.  He  saw  very 
little  of  the  world  in  his  later  years,  save  that  part  of 
it  which  at  odd  intervals  found  its  way  to  the  delights 
of  Leasowes ;  indeed,  he  was  not  of  a  temper  to  meet 
the  world  upon  fair  terms.  "  The  generality  of  man- 
kind," he  cynically  says,  "  are  seldom  in  good  humor 
but  whilst  they  are  imposing  upon  you  in  some  shape 
or  other."  * 

Our  farmer  of  Leasowes  published  a  pastoral  that 
was  no  way  equal  to  the  pastoral  he  wrote  with  trees, 
walks,  and  water  upon  his  land ;  yet  there  are  few  cul- 
tivated readers  who  have  not  some  day  met  with  it, 
and  been  beguiled  by  its  mellifluous  seesaw.  How  its 
jingling  resonance  comes  back  to  me  to-day  from  the 
"  Reader  "  book  of  the  High  School ! 

"  I  have  found  out  a  gift  for  my  fair ; 

I  have  found  where  the  wood-pigeons  breed : 
But  let  me  that  plunder  forbear; 

*  Detached  Thoughts  on  Men  and  Manners :  Wm.  Shenstone. 


WILLIAM  SHENSTONE.  211 

She  will  say  't  was  a  barbarous  deed. 
For  he  ne'er  could  be  true,  she  averred, 

Who  could  rob  a  poor  bird  of  its  young : 
And  I  loved  her  the  more,  when  I  heard 

Such  tenderness  fall  from  her  tongue." 

And  what  a  killing  look  over  at  the  girl  in  the 
corner,  in  check  gingham,  with  blue  bows  in  her  hair, 
as  I  read  (always  on  the  old  school-benches),  — 

"  I  have  heard  her  with  sweetness  unfold 

How  that  pity  was  due  to — a  dove: 
That  it  ever  attended  the  bold ; 

And  she  called  it  the  sister  of  love. 
But  her  words  such  a  pleasure  convey, 

So  much  I  her  accents  adore, 
Let  her  speak,  and  whatever  she  say, 

Methinks  I  should  love  her  the  more." 

There  is  a  rhythmic  prettiness  in  this ;  but  it  is  the 
prettiness  of  a  lover  in  his  teens,  and  not  the  kind  we 
look  for  from  a  man  who  stood  five  feet  eleven  in  his 
stockings,  and  wore  his  own  gray  hair.  Strangely 
enough,  Shenstone  had  the  physique  of  a  ploughman 
or  a  prize-fighter,  and  with  it  the  fine,  sensitive  brain 
of  a  woman ;  a  Greek  in  his  refinements,  and  a  Greek 
in  indolence.  I  hope  he  gets  on  better  in  the  other 
world  than  he  ever  did  in  this. 


SEVENTH  DAY. 


John  Abercrombie. 

T  BEGIN  my  day  with  a  canny  Scot,  who  was  born 
-*-  in  Edinburgh  in  1726,  "near  which  city  his  father 
conducted  a  large  market-garden.  As  a  youth,  aged 
nineteen,  John  Abercrombie  (for  it  is  of  him  I  make 
companion  this  wet  morning)  saw  the  Battle  of  Preston 
Pans,  at  which  the  Highlanders  pushed  the  King's-men 
in  defeat  to  the  very  foot  of  his  father's  garden-wall. 
Whether  he  shouldered  a  matchlock  for  the  Castle-peo- 
ple and  Sir  John  Hope,  or  merely  looked  over  from  the 
kale-beds  at  the  victorious  fighters  for  Prince  Charley, 
I  cannot  learn  ;  it  is  certain  only  that  before  Culloden, 
and  the  final  discomfiture  of  the  Pretender,  he  avowed 
himself  a  good  King's-man,  and  in  many  an  after-year, 
over  his  pipe  and  his  ale,  told  the  story  of  the  battle 
which  surged  wrathfully  around  his  father's  kale-garden 
by  Preston  Pans. 

But  he  did  not  stay  long  in  Scotland ;  he  became  gar- 


JOHN  ABERCROMBIE.  213 

dener  for  Sir  James  Douglas,  into  whose  family  (below- 
stairs)  he  eventually  married  ;  afterwards  he  had  expe- 
rience in  the  royal  gardens  at  Kew,  and  in  Leicester 
Fields.  Finally  he  became  proprietor  of  a  patch  of 
ground  in  the  neighborhood  of  London  ;  and  his  success 
here,  added  to  his  success  in  other  service,  gave  him  such 
reputation  that  he  was  one  day  waited  upon  (about  the 
year  1770)  by  Mr.  Da  vies,  a  London  bookseller,  who 
invited  him  to  dine  at  an  inn  in  Hackney ;  and  at  the 
dinner  he  was  introduced  to  a  certain  Oliver  Goldsmith, 
an  awkward  man,  who  had  published  four  years  before 
a  book  called  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield."  Mr.  Davies 
thought  John  Abercrombie  was  competent  to  write  a 
good  practical  work  on  gardening,  and  the  Hackney 
dinner  was  intended  to  warm  the  way  toward  such  a  book. 
Dinners  are  sometimes  given  with  such  ends  even  now. 
The  shrewd  Mr.  Davies  was  a  little  doubtful  of  Aber- 
crombie's  style,  but  not  at  all  doubtful  of  the  style  of  the 
author  of  "  The  Traveller."  Dr.  Goldsmith  was  not  a 
man  averse  to  a  good  meal,  where  he  was  to  meet  a 
straightforward,  out-spoken  Scotch  gardener ;  and  Mr. 
Davies,  at  a  mellow  stage  of  the- dinner,  brought  forward 
his  little  plan,  —  which  was  that  Abercrombie  should 
prepare  a  treatise  upon  gardening,  to  be  revised  and 
put  in  shape  by  the  author  of  "  The  Deserted  Village." 
The  dinner  at  Hackney  was,  I  dare  say,  a  good  one ;  the 
scheme  looked  promising  to  a  man  whose  vegetable- 


214  WET  DAYS. 

carts  streamed  every  morning  into  London,  and  to  the 
Doctor,  mindful  of  his  farm-retirement  at  the  six-mile 
stone  on  the  Edgeware  Road;  so  it  was  all  arranged 
between  them. 

But,  like  many  a  publisher's  scheme,  it  miscarried. 
The  Doctor  perhaps  saw  a  better  bargain  in  the  Lives 
of  Bolingbroke  and  Parnell ;  *  or  perhaps  his  appoint- 
ment as  Professor  of  History  to  the  Royal  Academy  put 
him  too  much  upon  his  dignity.  At  any  rate,  the  world 
has  to  regret  a  gardening-book  in  which  the  shrewd 
practical  knowledge  of  Abercrombie  would  have  been 
refined  by  the  grace  and  the  always  alluring  limpidity 
of  the  style  of  Goldsmith. 

I  know  that  the  cultivators  pretend  to  spurn  graces 
of  manner,  and  affect  only  a  clumsy  burden  of  language, 
under  which,  I  am  sorry  to  say,  the  best  agriculturists 
have  most  commonly  labored ;  but  if  the  transparen* 
simplicity  of  Goldsmith  had  once  been  thoroughly  in- 
fused with  the  practical  knowledge  of  Abercrombie, 
what  a  book  on  gardening  we  should  have  had  !  What 
a  lush  verdure  of  vegetables  would  have  tempted  us ! 
What  a  wealth  of  perfume  would  have  exuded  from  the 
flowers ! 

But  the  scheme  proved  abortive.  Goldsmith  said,  "  I 
think  our  friend  Abercrombie  can  write  better  about 
plants  than  I  can."  And  so  doubtless  he  could,  so  far  as 

*  Published  1770-'71. 


JOHN  ABERCROMB1E.  215 

knowledge  of  their  habits  went.  Eight  years  after, 
Abercrombie  prepared  a  book  called  "  Every  Man  his 
own  Gardener";  but  so  doubtful  was  he  of  his  own 
reputation,  that  he  paid  twenty  pounds  to  Mr.  Thomas 
Mawe,  the  fashionable  gardener  of  the  Duke  of  Leeds, 
for  the  privilege  of  placing  Mr.  Mawe's  name  upon  the 
title-page.  I  am  sorry  to  record  such  a  scurvy  bit  of 
hypocrisy  in  so  competent  a  man.  The  book  sold,  how- 
ever, and  sold  so  well,  that,  a  few  years  after,  the  elegant 
Mr.  Mawe  begged  a  visit  from  the  nursery-man  of  Tot- 
tenham Court,  whom  he  had  never  seen  ;  so  Abercrom- 
bie goes  down  to  the  seat  of  the  Duke  of  Leeds,  and 
finds  his  gardener  so  bedizened  with  powder,  and  wear- 
ing such  a  grand  air,  that  he  mistakes  him  for  his  Lord- 
ship ;  but  it  is  a  mistake,  we  may  readily  believe,  which 
the  elegant  Mr.  Mawe  forgives,  and  the  two  gardeners 
become  capital  friends. 

Abercrombie  afterward  published  many  works  under 
his  own  name  ;  *  among  these  was  "  The  Gardener's 
Pocket  Journal,"  which  maintained  an  unflagging  popu- 
larity as  a  standard  book  for  a  period  of  half  a  century. 
This  hardy  Scotchman  lived  to  be  eighty ;  and  when  he 
could  work  no  longer,  he  was  constantly  afoot  among 
the  botanical  gardens  about  London.  At  the  last  it  was 
a  fall  "  down-stairs  in  the  dark  "  that  was  the  cause  of 
death  ;  and  fifteen  days  after,  as  his  quaint  biographers 
*  Johnson  enumerates  fifteen. 


216  WET  DAYS. 

tell  us,  "  he  expired,  just  as  the  clock  upon  St.  Paul's 
struck  twelve,  —  between  April  and  May  " :  as  if  the 
ripe  old  gardener  could  not  tell  which  of  these  twin  gar- 
den -  months  he  loved  the  best ;  and  so,  with  a  foot 
planted  in  each,  he  made  the  leap  into  the  realm  of  eter- 
nal spring. 

A  noticeable  fact  in  regard  to  this  out-of-door  old 
gentleman  is,  that  he  never  took  "doctors'-stuff"  in  his 
life,  until  the  time  of  that  fatal  fall  in  the  dark.  He 
was,  however,  an  inveterate  tea-drinker ;  and  there  was 
another  aromatic  herb  (I  write  this  with  my  pipe  in  my 
mouth)  of  which  he  was,  up  to  the  very  last,  a  most 
ardent  consumer. 

A  Philosopher  and  Two  Poets. 

TN  the  year  1766  was  published  for  the  first  time  a 
-•-  posthumous  work  by  John  Locke,  the  great  philos- 
opher and  the  good  Christian,  entitled,  "  Observations 
upon  the  Growth  and  Culture  of  Vines  and  Olives,"  * 
—  written,  very  likely,  after  his  return  from  France, 
down  in  his  pleasant  Essex  home,  at  the  seat  of  Sir 
Francis  Masham.  Were  the  book  by  me,  I  should  love 
to  give  the  reader  a  sample  of  the  manner  in  which 


»  Most  of  the  bibliographers  have  omitted  mention  of  this  treatise. 
It  may  be  found  in  the  collected  edition  of  Locke's  works,  London, 
1823,  Vol.  X. 


A  PHILOSOPHER  AND   TWO  POETS.       217 

the  author  of  "  An  Essay  concerning  Hunan  Under- 
standing "  wrote  regarding  horticultural  matters.  No 
one  can  doubt  but  there  is  wisdom  in  it.  "  I  believe 
you  think  me,"  he  writes  in  a  private  letter  to  a  friend, 
"  too  proud  to  undertake  anything  wherein  I  should 
acquit  myself  but  unworthily."  This  is  a  sort  of  pride 
—  not  very  common  in  our  day  —  which  does  not  go 
before  a  fall. 

I  name  a  poet  next,  —  not  because  a  great  poet,  for 
he  was  not,  nor  yet  because  he  wrote  "The  English 
Garden,"  *  for  there  is  sweeter  garden-perfume  in  many 
another  poem  of  the  day  that  does  not  pique  our  curi- 
osity by  its  title.  But  the  Reverend  William  Mason,  if 
not  among  the  foremost  of  poets,  was  a  man  of  most 
kindly  and  liberal  sympathies.  He  was  a  devoted  Whig, 
at  a  time  when  Whiggism  meant  friendship  for  the 
American  Colonists ;  and  the  open  expression  of  this 
friendship  cost  him  his  place  as  a  Royal  Chaplain.  I 
will  remember  this  longer  than  I  remember  his  "  English 
Garden,"  —  longer  than  I  remember  his  best  couplet 
of  verse :  — 

"  While  through  the  west,  where  sinks  the  crimson  day, 
Meek  twilight  slowly  sails,  and  waves  her  banners  gray." 

It  was  alleged,  indeed,  by  those  who  loved  to  say  ill- 

*  Of  which  the  first  book  was  published  in  1772.  This  author  is  to 
be  distinguished  from  George  Mason,  who  in  1768  published  An  Etsay 
on  Design  in  Gardening. 


218  WET  DAYS. 

natured  things,  (Horace  Walpole  among  them,)  that  in 
the  later  yea'rs  of  his  life  he  forgot  his  first  love  of  Lib- 
eralism and  became  politically  conservative.  But  it 
must  be  remembered  that  the  good  poet  lived  into  the 
time  when  the  glut  and  gore  of  the  French  Revolution 
made  people  hold  their  breath,  and  when  every  man 
who  lifted  a  humane  plaint  against  the  incessant  creak 
and  crash  of  the  guillotine  was  reckoned  by  all  mad  re- 
formers a  conservative.  I  think,  if  I  had  lived  in  that 
day,  I  should  have  been  a  conservative,  too,  —  however 
much  the  pretty  and  bloody  Desmoulins  might  have 
made  faces  at  me  in  the  newspapers. 

I  can  find  nothing  in  Mason's  didactic  poem  to  quote. 
There  are  tasteful  suggestions  scattered  through  it,  bet- 
ter every  way  than  his  poetry.  The  grounds  of  his  vic- 
arage at  Aston  must  have  offered  charming  loitering- 
places.  I  will  leave  him  idling  there,  —  perhaps  con- 
ning over  some  letter  of  his  friend  the  poet  Gray ;  per- 
haps lounging  in  the  very  alcove  where  he  had  inscribed 
this  verse  of  the  "  Elegy,"  - 

"  Here  scattered  oft,  the^oveliest  of  the  j'ear, 

By  hands  unseen,  are  showers  of  violets  found ; 
The  redbreast  loves  to  build  and  warble  here, 
And  little  footsteps  lightly  print  the  ground." 

If,  indeed,  he  had  known  how  to  strew  such  gems 
through  his  "  English  Garden,"  we  should  have  had  a 
poem  that  would  have  outshone  "  The  Seasons." 


A  PHILOSOPHER  AND  TWO  POETS.        219 

And  this  mention  reminds  me,  that,  although  I  have 
slipped  past  his  period,  I  have  said  no  word  as  yet  of 
the  Roxburgh  poet ;  but  he  shall  be  neglected  no  longer. 
(The  big  book,  my  boy,  upon  the  third  shelf,  with  a 
worn  back,  labelled  THOMSON.) 

This  poet  is  not  upon  the  gardeners'  or  the  agricul- 
tural lists.  One  can  find  no  farm-method  in  him,  —  in- 
deed, little  method  of  any  sort ;  there  is  no  description 
of  a  garden  carrying  half  the  details  that  belong  to 
Tasso's  garden  of  Armida,  or  Rousseau's  in  the  letter 
of  St.  Preux.*  And  yet,  as  we  read,  how  the  country, 
with  its  woods,  its  valleys,  its  hill-sides,  its  swains,  its  toil- 
ing cattle,  comes  swooping  to  our  vision  !  The  leaves 
rustle,  the  birds  warble,  the  rivers  roar  a  song.  The 
sun  beats  on  the  plains ;  the  winds  carry  waves  into 
the  grain  ;  the  clouds  plant  shadows  on  the  mountains. 
The  minuteness  and  the  accuracy  of  his  observation 
are  something  wonderful  ;  if  farmers  should  not  study 
him,  our  young  poets  may.  He  never  puts  a  song  in 
the  throat  of  a  jay  or  a  wood-dove  ;  he  never  makes  a 
mother-bird  break  out  in  bravuras;  he  never  puts  a 
sickle  into  green  grain,  or  a  trout  in  a  slimy  brook  ;  he 
could  picture  no  orchis  growing  on  a  hill-side,  or  colum- 
bine nodding  in  a  meadow.  If  the  leaves  shimmer,  you 
may  be  sure  the  sun  is  shining;  if  a  primrose  light- 
ens on  the  view,  you  may  be  sure  there  is  some  covert 
*  Lettre  XI.  Liv.  IV.  Noucelle  Jfeloise. 


220  WET  DAYS. 

which  the  primroses  love  ;  and  never  by  any  license 
does  a  white  flower  come  blushing  into  his  poem. 

I  will  not  quote,  where  so  much  depends  upon  the  at- 
mosphere which  the  poet  himself  creates  as  he  waves 
his  enchanter's  wand.  Over  all  the  type  his  sweet 
power  compels  a  rural  heaven  to  lie  reflected ;  I  go 
from  budding  spring  to  blazing  summer  at  the  turning 
of  a  page ;  on  all  the  meadows  below  me  (though  it  is 
March)  I  see  ripe  autumn  brooding  with  golden  wings ; 
and  winter  howls  and  screams  in  gusts,  and  tosses  tem- 
pests of  snow  into  my  eyes  —  out  of  the  book  my  boy 
has  just  now  brought  me. 

One  verse,  at  least,  I  will  cite,  —  so  full  it  is  of  all 
pastoral  feeling,  so  brimming  over  with  the  poet's  pas- 
sion for  the  country :  it  is  from  "  The  Castle  of  Indo- 
lence " :  — 

"  I  care  not,  Fortune,  what  you  me  deny: 
You  cannot  rob  me  of  free  Nature's  grace; 
You  cannot  shut  the  windows  of  the  sky, 
Through  which  Aurora  shows  her  brightening  face ; 
You  cannot  bar  my  constant  feet  to  trace 
The  woods  and  lawns,  by  living  stream  at  eve: 
Let  health  my  nerves  and  finer  fibres  brace, 
And  I  their  toys  to  the  great  children  leave ; 
Of  fancy,  reason,  virtue,  nought  can  me  bereave." 


LORD  KAMES.  221 


Lord  Kames. 

\  NOTHER  Scotchman,  Lord  Kames,  (Henry  Home 
-£jL  by  name,)  who  was  Senior  Lord  of  Sessions  in 
Scotland  about  the  year  1760,  was  best  known  in  his 
own  day  for  his  discussion  of  "  The  Principles  of  Equi- 
ty " ;  he  is  known  to  the  literary  world  as  the  author  of 
an  elegant  treatise  upon  the  "  Elements  of  Criticism  "  ; 
I  beg  leave  to  introduce  him  to  my  readers  to-day  as 
a  sturdy,  practical  farmer.  The  book,  indeed,  which 
serves  for  his  card  of  introduction,  is  called  "  The  Gen- 
tleman Farmer  " ;  *  but  we  must  not  judge  it  by  our 
experience  of  the  class  who  wear  that  title  nowadays. 
Lord  Kames  recommends  no  waste  of  money,  no  ex- 
travagant architecture,  no  mere  prettinesses.  He  talks 
of  the  plough  in  a  way  that  assures  us  he  has  held  it 
some  day  with  his  own  hands.  People  are  taught,  he 
says,  more  by  the  eye  than  the  ear ;  show  them  good 
culture,  and  they  will  follow  it. 

As  for  what  were  called  the  principles  of  agriculture, 
he  found  them  involved  in  obscurity ;  he  went  to  the 
book  of  Nature  for  instruction,  and  commenced,  like 
Descartes,  with  doubting  everything.  He  condemns 
the  Roman  husbandry  as  fettered  by  superstitions,  and 
gives  a  piquant  sneer  at  the  absurd  rhetoric  and  verbos- 
*  First  published  in  1766. 


222  WET  DAYS. 

ity  of  Varro.*  Nor  is  he  any  more  tolerant  of  Scotch 
superstitions.  He  declares  against  wasteful  and  care- 
less farming  in  a  way  that  reminds  us  of  our  good  friend 
Judge ,  at  the  last  county-show. 

He  urges  good  ploughing  as  a  primal  necessity,  and 
insists  upon  the  use  of  the  roller  for  rendering  the  sur- 
face of  wheat-lands  compact,  and  so  retaining  the  moist- 
ure ;  nor  does  he  attempt  to  reconcile  this  declaration 
with  the  Tull  theory  of  constant  trituration.  A  great 
many  excellent  Scotch  farmers  still  hold  to  the  views 
of  his  Lordship,  and  believe  in  "  keeping  the  sap  "  in 
fresh-tilled  land  by  heavy  rolling  ;  and  so  far  as  regards 
a  wheat  or  rye  crop  upon  light  lands,  I  think  the  weight 
of  opinion,  as  well  as  of  the  rollers,  is  with  them. 

Lord  Kames,  writing  before  the  time  of  draining- 
tile,  dislikes  open  ditches,  by  reason  of  their  interfer- 
ence with  tillage,  and  does  not  trust  the  durability  of 
brush  or  stone  underdrains.  He  relies  upon  ridging, 
and  the  proper  disposition  of  open  furrows,  in  the  old 
Greek  way.  Turnips  he  commends  without  stint,  and 
the  Tull  system  of  their  culture.  Of  clover  he  thinks 
as  highly  as  the  great  English  farmer,  but  does  not  be- 
lieve in  his  notion  of  economizing  seed :  "  Idealists," 
he  says,  "  talk  of  four  pounds  to  the  acre ;  but  when 
sown  for  cutting  green,  I  would  advise  twenty -four 

*  Citing,  in  confirmation,  that  passage  commencing,  —  "  Nunc  dicam 
agri  quibut  rebua  colnntur"  etc. 


LORD  KAMES.  223 

pounds."    This  amount  will  seem  a  little  startling,  I 
fancy,  even  to  farmers  of  our  day. 

He  advises  strongly  the  use  of  oxen  in  place  of 
horses  for  all  farm-labor ;  they  cost  less,  keep  for  -less, 
and  sell  for  more  ;  and  he  enters  into  arithmetical  calcu- 
lations to  establish  his  propositions.  He  instances  Mr. 
Burke,  who  ploughs  with  four  oxen  at  Beaconsfield. 
How  drolly  it  sounds  to  hear  the  author  of  "  Letters  on 
a  Regicide  Peace"  cited  as  an  authority  in  practical 

&    * 

fanning  !  He  still  further  urges  his  ox-working  scheme, 
on  grounds  of  public  economy :  it  will  cheapen  food, 
forbid  importation  of  oats,  and  reduce  wages.  Again, 
he  recommends  soiling  *  by  all  the  arguments  which  are 
used,  and  vainly  used,  with  us.  He  shows  the  worth- 
lessness  of  manure  dropped  upon  a  parched  field,  com- 
pared with  the  same  duly  cared  for  in  court  or  stable ; 
he  proposes  movable  sheds  for  feeding,  and  enters  into 
a  computation  of  the  weight  of  green  clover  which  will 
be  consumed  in  a  day  by  horses,  cows,  or  oxen:  "a 
horse,  ten  Dutch  stone  daily ;  an  ox  or  cow,  eight  stone ; 
ten  horses,  ten  oxen,  and  six  cows,  two  hundred  and 
twenty-eight  stone  per  day,"  —  involving  constant  cart- 
age :  still  he  is  convinced  of  the  profit  of  the  method. 

His  views  on  feeding  ordinary  store-cattle,  or  accus- 
toming them   to  change  of  food,  are  eminently  prac- 
tical.   After  speaking  of  the  desirableness  of  provid- 
*  Pp.  177-179,  edition  of  1802,  Edinburgh. 


224  WET  DAYS. 

ing  a  good  stock  of  vegetables,  he  continues,  —  "  And 
yet,  after  all,  how  many  indolent  farmers  remain,  who 
for  want  of  spring  food  are  forced  to  turn  their  cattle 
out  to  grass  before  it  is  ready  for  pasture !  which  not 
only  starves  the  cattle,  but  lays  the  grass-roots  open  to 
be  parched  by  sun  and  wind." 

Does  not  this  sound  as  if  I  had  clipped  it  from  the 
"  Country  Gentleman  "  of  last  week  ?  And  yet  it  was 
written  nearly  ninety  years  ago,  by  one  of  the  most 
accomplished  Scotch  judges,  and  in  his  eightieth  year, 
—  another  Varro,  packing  his  luggage  for  his  last  voy- 
age. 

One  great  value  of  Lord  Kames's  talk  lies  in  the 
particularity  of  his  directions :  he  does  not  despise 
mention  of  those  minutiae  a  neglect  of  which  makes  so 
many  books  of  agricultural  instruction  utterly  useless. 
Thus,  in  so  small  a  matter  as  the  sowing  of  clover- 
seed,  he  tells  how  the  thumb  and  finger  should  be 
held,  for  its  proper  distribution ;  in  stacking,  he  directs 
how  to  bind  the  thatch;  he  tells  how  mown  grass 
should  be  raked,  and  how  many  hours  spread;*  and 
his  directions  for  the  making  of  clover-hay  could  not 
be  improved  upon  this  very  summer.  "  Stir  it  not  the 
day  it  is  cut  Turn  it  in  the  swath  the  forenoon  of  the 
next  day ;  and  in  the  afternoon  put  it  up  in  small 
cocks.  The  third  day  put  two  cocks  into  one,  enlarg- 
*  Pp.  166, 167. 


LORD  KAMES.  225 

ing  every  day  the  cocks  till  they  are  rea.dy  for  the 
tramp  rick  [temporary  field-stack]."  The  reader  will 
not  fail  to  remark  hov/  nearly  this  method  agrees  with 
the  one  cited  in  my  First  Day,  from  the  treatise  of 
Heresbach. 

A  small  portion  of  his  book  is  given  up  to  the  dis- 
cussion of  the  theory  of  agriculture ;  but  he  fairly 
warns  his  readers  that  he  is  wandering  in  the  dark. 
If  all  theorists  were  as  honest !  He  deplores  the  ig- 
norance of  Tull  in  asserting  that  plants  feed  on  earth  ; 
air  and  water  alone,  in  his  opinion,  furnish  the  supply 
of  plant-food.  All  plants  feed  alike,  and  on  the  same 
material  ;  degeneracy  appearing  only  in  those  which 
are  not  native :  white  clover  never  deteriorates  in  Eng- 
land, nor  bull-dogs. 

But  I  will  not  linger  on  his  theories.  He  is  repre- 
sented to  have  been  a  kind  and  humane  man  ;  but  this 
did  not  forbid  a  hearty  relish  (appearing  often  in  his 
book)  for  any  scheme  which  promised  to  cheapen  labor. 
"  The  people  on  landed  estates,"  he  says,  "  are  trusted 
by  Providence  to  the  owner's  care,  and  the  proprietor 
is  accountable  for  the  management  of  them  to  the 
Great  God,  who  is  the  Creator  of  both."  It  does  not 
seem  to  have  occurred  to  the  old  gentleman  that  some 
day  people  might  decline  to  be  "  managed." 

He  gave  the  best  proof  of  his  practical  tact,  in  the 
conduct   of   his   estate    of  Blair-Drummond,  —  uniting 
15 


226  WET  DAYS. 

there  all  the  graces  of  the  best  landscape-gardening 
with  profitable  returns. 

I  take  leave  of  him  with  a  single  excerpt  from  his 
admirable  chapter  on  Gardening  in  the  "  Elements  of 
Criticism  "  :  —  "  Other  fine  arts  may  be  perverted  to 
excite  irregular,  and  even  vicious  emotions;  but  gar- 
dening, which  inspires  the  purest  and  most  refined 
pleasures,  cannot  fail  to  promote  every  good  affection. 
The  gayety  and  harmony  of  mind  it  produceth  inclin- 
eth  the  spectator  to  communicate  his  satisfaction  to 
others,  and  to  make  them  happy  as  he  is  himself,  and 
tends  naturally  to  establish  in  him  a  habit  of  humanity 
and  benevolence." 

It  is  humiliating  to  reflect  that  a  thievish  orator  at 
one  of  our  Agricultural  Fairs  might  appropriate  page 
after  page  out  of  the  "  Gentleman  Farmer "  of  Lord 
Kames,  written  in  the  middle  of  the  last  century,  and 
the  county-paper,  and  the  aged  directors,  in  clean  shirt- 
collars  and  dress-coats,  would  be  full  of  praises  "  of 
the  enlightened  views  of  our  esteemed  fellow-citizen." 
And  yet  at  the  very  time  when  the  critical  Scotch 
judge  was  meditating  his  book,  there  was  erected  a 
land  light-house,  called  Dunston  Column,  upon  Lincoln 
Heath,  to  guide  night  travellers  over  a  great  waste  of 
land  that  lay  a  half-day's  ride  south  of  Lincoln.  And 
when  Lady  Robert  Manners,  who  had  a  seat  at  Blox- 
holme,  wished  to  visit  Lincoln,  a  groom  or  two  were 


CLARIDGE,  MILLS,  AND  MILLER.  227 

sent  out  the  morning  before  to  explore  a  good  path, 
and  families  were  not  unfrequently  lost  for  days  *  to- 
gether in  crossing  the  heath.  This  same  heath  — 
made  up  of  a  light  fawn-colored  sand,  lying  on  "dry, 
thirsty  stone  "  —  was,  twenty  years  since  at  least,  bloom- 
ing all  over  with  rank,  dark  lines  of  turnips  ;  trim,  low 
hedges  skirted  the  level  highways ;  neat  farm-cottages 
were  flanked  with  great  saddle-backed  ricks ;  thou- 
sands upon  thousands  of  long-woolled  sheep  cropped 
the  luxuriant  pasturage,  and  the  Dunston  column  was 
but  an  idle  monument  of  a  waste  that  existed  no 
longer. 

Claridge,  Mitts,  and  Miller. 

A  BOUT  the  time  of  Lord  Kames's  establishment 
•£*•  at  Blair-Drummond,  or  perhaps  a  little  earlier, 
a  certain  Master  Claridge  published  "The  Country 
Calendar;  or,  The  Shepherd  of  Banbury's  Rules  to 
know  of  the  Change  of  the  Weather."  It  professed 
to  be  based  upon  forty  years'  experience,  and  is  said 
to  have  met  with  great  favor.  I  name  it  only  be- 
cause it  embodies  these  old  couplets,  which  still  lead  a 
vagabond  life  up  and  down  the  pages  of  country- 
almanacs  :  — 

*  See  Article  of  Philip  Pussy,  M.  P.,  ia  Transactions  of  the  Royal 
Society,  Vol.  XIV. 


228  WET  DAYS. 

"  If  the  grass  grows  in  Janiveer, 
It  grows  the  worst  for 't  all  the  year." 

"  The  Welshman  had  rather  see  his  dam  on  the  bier 
Than  to  see  a  fair  Fehrueer." 

"  When  April  blows  his  horn, 
It 's  good  both  for  hay  and  corn.'' 

"  A  cold  May  and  a  windy 
Makes  a  full  barn  and  a  findy." 

"  A  swarm  of  bees  in  May 
Is  worth  a  load  of  hay; 
But  a  swarm  in  July 
Is  not  worth  a  fly." 

Will  any  couplets  of  Tennyson  reap  as  large  a 
fame? 

About  the  same  period,  John  Mills,  a  Fellow  of  the 
Royal  Society,  published  a  work  of  a  totally  different 
character,  —  being  very  methodic,  very  full,  very  clear. 
It  was  distributed  through  five  volumes.  He  enforces 
the  teachings  of  Evelyn  and  Duhamel,  and  is  com- 
mendatory of  the  views  of  Tull.  The  Rotherham 
plough  is  figured  in  his  work,  as  well  as  thirteen  of 
the  natural  grasses.  He  speaks  of  potatoes  and  turnips 
as  established  crops,  and  enlarges  upon  their  impor- 
tance. He  clings  to  the  Virgilian  theory  of  small 
farms,  and  to  the  better  theory  of  thorough  tillage. 

In  1759  was  issued  the  seventh  edition  of  Miller's 


CLARIDGE,  MILLS,  AND  MILLER.  229 

'*  Gardener's  Dictionary,"  *  in  which  was  for  the  first 
time  adopted  (in  English)  the  classical  system  of  Lin- 
naeus. If  I  have  not  before  alluded  to  Philip  Miller, 
it  is  not  because  he  is  undeserving.  He  was  a  cor- 
respondent of  the  chiefs  in  science  over  the  Continent 
of  Europe,  and  united  to  his  knowledge  a  rare  practical 
skill.  He  was  superintendent  of  the  famous  Chelsea 
Gardens  of  the  Apothecaries  Company.  He  lies 
buried  in  the  Chelsea  Church-yard,  where  the  Fellows 
of  the  Linnaean  and  Horticultural  Societies  of  London 
have  erected  a  monument  to  his  memory.  Has  the 
reader  ever  sailed  up  the  Thames,  beyond  "Westmin- 
ster ?  And  does  he  remember  a  little  spot  of  garden- 
ground,  walled  in  by  dingy  houses,  that  lies  upon  the 
right  bank  of  the  river  near  to  Chelsea  Hospital? 
If  he  can  recall  two  gaunt,  flat-topped  cedars  which 
sentinel  the  walk  leading  to  the  river -gate,  he  will 
have  the  spot  in  his  mind,  where,  nearly  two  hundred 
years  ago,  and  a  full  century  before  the  Kew  parterres 
were  laid  down,  the  Chelsea  Garden  of  the  Apothe- 
caries Company  was  established.  It  was  in  the  open 
country  then  ;  and  even  Philip  Miller,  in  1722,  walked 
to  his  work  between  hedge  -  rows,  where  sparrows 
chirped  in  spring,  and  in  winter  the  fieldfare  chat- 
tered :  but  the  town  has  swallowed  it ;  the  city-smoke 
has  starved  it ;  even  the  marble  image  of  Sir  Hans 

*  First  published  in  1724. 


230  WET  DAYS. 

Sloane  in  its  centre  is  but  the  mummy  of  a  statue. 
Yet  in  the  Physic  Garden  there  are  trees  struggling 
still  which  Philip  Miller  planted;  and  I  can  readily 
believe,  that,  when  the  old  man,  at  seventy  -  eight, 
(through  some  quarrel  with  the  Apothecaries,)  took 
his  last  walk  to  the  river-bank,  he  did  it  with  a  sink- 
ing at  the  heart  which  kept  by  him  till  he  died. 

TJiomas   Whately. 

T  COME  now  to  speak  of  Thomas  Whately,  to  whom 
-"-  I  have  already  alluded,  and  of  whom,  from  the 
scantiness  of  all  record  of  his  life,  it  is  possible  to  say 
only  very  little.  He  lived  at  Nonsuch  Park,  in  Surrey, 
not  many  miles  from  London,  on  the  road  to  Epsom. 
He  was  engaged  in  public  affairs,  being  at  one  time 
secretary  to  the  Earl  of  Suffolk,  and  also  a  member  of 
Parliament  But  I  enroll  him  in  my  wet-day  service 
simply  as  the  author  of  the  most  appreciative  and  most 
tasteful  treatise  upon  landscape-gardening  which  has 
ever  been  written,  —  not  excepting  either  Price  or 
Repton.  It  is  entitled,  "Observations  on  Modern 
Gardening,"  and  was  first  published  in  1770.  It  was 
the  same  year  translated  into  French  by  Latapie,  and 
was  to  the  Continental  gardeners  the  first  revelation 
of  the  graces  which  belonged  to  English  cultivated 
landscape.  In  the  course  of  the  book  he  gives  vivid 


THOMAS   WHATELY.  231 

descriptions  of  Blenheim,  Hagley,  Leasowes,  Clare- 
mont,  and  several  other  well-known  British  places. 
He  treats  separately  of  Parks,  Water,  Farms,  Gar- 
dens, Ridings,  etc.,  illustrating  each  with  delicate  and 
tender  transcripts  of  natural  scenes.  Now  he  takes 
us  to  the  cliffs  of  Matlock,  and  again  to  the  farm-flats 
of  Woburn.  His  criticisms  upon  the  places  reviewed 
are  piquant,  full  of  rare  apprehension  of  the  most 
delicate  natural  beauties,  and  based  on  principles 
which  every  man  of  taste  must  accept  at  sight  As 
you  read  him,  he  does  not  seem  so  much  a  theorizer 
or  expounder  as  he  does  the  simple  interpreter  of 
graces  which  had  escaped  your  notice.  His  sugges- 
tions come  upon  you  with  such  a  momentum  of  truth- 
fulness, that  you  cannot  stay  to  challenge  them. 

There  is  no  argumentation,  and  no  occasion  for  it. 
On  such  a  bluff  he  tells  us  wood  should  be  planted, 
and  we  wonder  that  a  hundred  people  had  not  said 
the  same  thing  before;  on  such  a  river-meadow  the 
grassy  level  should  lie  open  to  the  sun,  and  we  wonder 
who  could  ever  have  doubted  it  Nor  is  it  in  matters 
of  taste  alone,  I  think,  that  the  best  things  we  hear 
seem  always  to  have  a  smack  of  oldness  in  them,  — 
as  if  we  remembered  their  virtue.  "  Capital ! "  we  say  ; 
"but  has  n't  it  been  said  before?"  or,  "Precisely! 
I  wonder  I  did  n't  do  or  say  the  same  thing  myself." 
Whenever  you  hear  such  criticisms  upon  any  perform- 


232  WET  DAYS. 

ance,  you  may  be  sure  that  it  has  been  directed  by  a 
sound  instinct  It  is  not  a  sort  of  criticism  any  one 
is  apt  to  make  upon  flashy  rhetoric,  or  upon  flash  gar- 
dening. 

Whately  alludes  to  the  analogy  between  landscape- 
painting  and  landscape-gardening :  the  true  artists  in 
either  pursuit  aim  at  the  production  of  rich  pictorial 
effects,  but  their  means  are  different.  Does  the 
painter  seek  to  give  steepness  to  a  declivity  ?  —  then 
he  may  add  to  his  shading  a  figure  or  two  toiling  up. 
The  gardener,  indeed,  cannot  plant  a  man  there ;  but 
a  copse  upon  the  summit  will  add  to  the  apparent 
height,  and  he  may  indicate  the  difficulty  of  ascent 
by  a  hand-rail  running  along  the  path.  The  painter 
will  extend  his  distance  by  the  diminuendo  of  his 
mountains,  or  of  trees  stretching  toward  the  horizon : 
the  gardener  has,  indeed,  no  handling  of  successive 
mountains,  but  he  may  increase  apparent  distance  by 
leafy  avenues  leading  toward  the  limit  of  vision  ;  he 
may  even  exaggerate  the  effect  still  further  by  so  grad- 
uating the  size  of  his  trees  as  to  make  a  counterfeit 
perspective. 

When  I  read  such  a  book  as  this  of  Whately's,  — 
so  informed  and  leavened  as  it  is  by  an  elegant  taste, 
—  I  am  most  painfully  impressed  by  the  shortcomings 
of  very  much  which  is  called  good  landscape-garden- 
ing with  us.  As  if  serpentine  walks,  and  glimpses  of 


THOMAS   WHATELY.  233 

elaborated  turf-ground,  and  dots  of  exotic  evergreens 
in  little  circlets  of  spaded  earth,  compassed  at  all  those 
broad  effects  which  a  good  designer  should  keep  in 
mind  !  We  are  gorged  with  petit-maitre-ism,  and  pretty 
littlenesses  of  all  kinds.  We  have  the  daintiest  of 
walks,  and  the  rarest  of  shrubs,  and  the  best  of  drain- 
age ;  but  of  those  grand,  bold  effects  which  at  once 
seize  upon  the  imagination,  and  inspire  it  with  new  wor- 
ship of  Nature,  we  have  great  lack.  In  private  grounds 
we  cannot  of  course  command  the  opportunity  which 
the  long  tenure  under  British  privilege  gives  ;  but  the 
conservators  of  public  parks  have  scope  and  verge  ; 
let  them  look  to  it,  that  their,  resources  be  not  wasted 
in  the  niceties  of  mere  gardening,  or  in  elaborate  ar- 
chitectural devices.  Banks  of  blossoming  shrubs  and 
tangled  wild  vines  and  labyrinthine  walks  will  count 
for.  nothing  in  park -effect,  when,  fifty  years  hence, 
the  scheme  shall  have  ripened,  and  hoary  pines  pile 
along  the  ridges,  and  gaunt  single  trees  spot  here 
and  there  the  glades,  to  invite  the  noontide  wayfarer. 
A  true  artist  should  keep  these  ultimate  effects  always 
in  his  eye,  —  effects  that  may  be  greatly  impaired,  if 
not  utterly  sacrificed,  by  an  injudicious  multiplication 
of  small  and  meretricious  beauties,  which  in  no  way 
conspire  to  the  grand  and  final  poise  of  the  scene. 

But  I  must  not  dwell  upon  so  enticing  a  topic,  or 
my  wet  day  will  run  over  into   sunshine.     One   word 


234  WET  DAYS. 

more,  however,  I  have   to  say  of  the  personality  of 
the   author  who  has    suggested  it.      The   reader  of 
Sparks's  "Works  and  Life  of  Franklin  may  remember, 
that,  in  the  fourth  volume,  under  the  head  of  "  Hutch- 
inson's  Letters,"  the  Doctor   details   difficulties  which 
he  fell   into   in   connection  with  "  certain  papers "  he 
obtained  indirectly  from  one  of  His  Majesty's  officials, 
and   communicated   to  Thomas  Gushing,  Speaker   of 
the  House   of  Representatives  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 
The  difficulty  involved  others  besides  the  Doctor,  and 
a  duel  came  of  it  between  William  Whately  and  Mr. 
Temple.      This  William  Whately  was  the  brother  of 
Thomas   Whately,  —  the    author    in    question,  —  and 
secretary  to   Lord    Grenville,*  in   which   capacity  he 
died  in  1772.f     The  "  papers  "  alluded  to  were  letters 
from    Governor   Hutchinson    and    others,   expressing 
sympathy   with   the   British   Ministry   in   their  efforts 
to  enforce  a  grievous  Colonial  taxation.     It  was   cur- 
rently  supposed  that  Mr.  Secretary  Whately  was  the 
recipient  of  these  letters;  and  upon  their  being  made 
public  after  his  death,  Mr.  Whately,  his  brother  and 
executor,  conceived   that  Mr.  Temple  was  the  instru- 
ment of  their  transfer.     Hence  the  duel.     Dr.  Frank- 
lin, however,  by  public  letter,  declared  that  this  alle- 
gation was   ill-founded,   but  would  never  reveal  the 

*  I  find  him  named,  in  Dodslcy's  Annual  Register  for  1771,  "Keeper 
of  His  Majesty's  Private  Roads." 

t  Loudoii  makes  an  error  in  giving  1780  as  the  year  of  his  death. 


HORACE    WALPOLE.  235 

name  of  the  party  to  whom  he  was  indebted.  The 
Doctor  lost  his  place  of  Postmaster-General  for  the 
Colonies,  and  was  egregiously  insulted  by  Wedder- 
burn  in  open  Council;  but  he  could  console  himself 
with  the  friendship  of  such  men  as  Lawyer  Dunning, 
(one  of  the  suspected  authors  of  "  Junius,")  and  with 
the  eulogium  of  Lord  Chatham. 

Horace  Walpole. 

THERE  are  three  more  names  belonging  to  this 
period,  which  I  shall  bring  under  review,  to  finish 
up  my  day.  These  are  Horace  Walpole,  (Lord  Or- 
ford,)  Edmund  Burke,  and  Oliver  Goldsmith.  Wal- 
pole was  the  proprietor  of  Strawberry  Hill,  and  wrote 
upon  gardening :  Burke  was  the  owner  of  a  noble  farm 
at  Beaconsfield,  which  he  managed  with  rare  sagacity  : 
Goldsmith  could  never  claim  land  enough  to  dig  a 
grave  upon,  until  the  day  he  was  buried ;  but  he  wrote 
the  story  of  "  The  Vicar  of  Wakefield,"  and  the  sweet 
poem  of  "  The  Deserted  Village." 

I  take  a  huge  pleasure  in  dipping  from  time  to  time 
into  the  books  of  Horace  Walpole,  and  an  almost  equal 
pleasure  in  cherishing  a  hearty  contempt  for  the  man. 
With  a  certain  native  cleverness,  and  the  tact  of  a 
showman,  he  paraded  his  resources,  whether  of  garden, 
or  villa,  or  memory,  or  ingenuity,  so  as  to  carry  a  larger 


236  WET  DAYS. 

reputation  for  ability  than  he  ever  has  deserved.  His 
money,  and  the  distinction  of  his  father,  gave  him  an 
association  with  cultivated  people,  —  artists,  politicians, 
poets,  —  which  the  metal  of  his  own  mind  would  never 
have  found  by  reason  of  its  own  gravitating  power. 
He  courted  notoriety  in  a  way  that  would  have  made 
him,  if  a  poorer  man,  the  toadying  Boswell  of  some 
other  Johnson  giant,  and,  if  very  poor,  the  welcome 
buffoon  of  some  gossiping  journal,  who  would  never 
weary  of  contortions,  and  who  would  brutify  himself 
at  the  death,  to  kindle  an  admiring  smile. 

He  writes  pleasantly  about  painters,  and  condescend- 
ingly of  gardeners  and  gardening.  Of  the  special 
beauties  of  Strawberry  Hill  he  is  himself  historiog- 
rapher; elaborate  copper  plates,  elegant  paper,  and 
a  particularity  that  is  ludicrous,  set  forth  the  charms 
of  a  villa  which  never  supplied  a  single  incentive  to 
correct  taste,  or  a  single  scene  that  has  the  embalm- 
ment of  genius.  He  tells  us  grandly  how  this  room 
was  hung  with  crimson,  and  that  other  with  gold  ;  how 
"  the  tea  -  room  was  adorned  with  green  paper  and 
prints,  ....  on  the  hearth,  a  large  green  vase  of 
German  ware,  with  a  spread  eagle,  and  lizards  for 
handles,"  —  which  vase  (if  the  observation  be  not 
counted  disloyal  by  sensitive  gentlemen)  must  have 
been  a  very  absurd  bit  of  pottery.  "  On  a  shelf  and 
brackets  are  two  pot-pourris  of  Nankin  china;  two 


HORACE    W ALP  OLE.  237 

pierced  blue  and  white  basons  of  old  Delft ;  and  two 
sceaus  [sic~\  of  coloured  Seve ;  a  blue  and  white  vase 
and  cover ;  and  two  old  Fayence  bottles." 

When  a  man  writes  about  his  own  furniture  in  this 
style  for  large  type  and  quarto,  we  pity  him  more  than 
if  he  had  kept  to  such  fantastic  nightmares  as  the 
"  Castle  of  Otranto."  The  Earl  of  Orford  speaks  in 
high  terms  of  the  literary  abilities  of  the  Earl  of 
Bath:  have  any  of  my  readers  ever  chanced  to  see 
any  literary  work  of  the  Earl  of  Bath  ?  If  not,  I  will 
supply  the  omission,  in  the  shape  of  a  ballad,  "  to  the 
tune  of  a  former  song  by  George  Bubb  Doddington." 
It  is  entitled,  "  Strawberry  Hill." 

"  Some  cry  up  Gunnersbury, 

For  Sion  some  declare ; 
And  some  say  that  with  Chiswick  House 

No  villa  can  compare. 
But  ask  the  beaux  of  Middlesex, 

Who  know  the  country  well, 
If  Strawb'ry  Hill,  if  Strawb'ry  Hill 

Don't  bear  away  the  bell? 

"  Since  Denham  sung  of  Cooper's, 

There  'a  scarce  a  hill  around 
But  what  in  song  or  ditty 

Is  turned  to  fairy  ground. 
Ah,  peace  be  with  their  memories ! 

I  wish  them  wondrous  well ; 
But  Strawb'ry  Hill,  but  Strawb'ry  Hill 

Must  bear  away  the  bell." 


238  WET  DAYS. 

It  is  no  way  surprising  that  a  noble  poet  capable  of 
writing  such  a  ballad  should  have  admired  the  villa  of 
Horace  Walpole :  it  is  no  way  surprising  that  a  propri- 
etor capable  of  admiring  such  a  ballad  should  have 
printed  his  own  glorification  of  Strawberry  Hill. 

I  am  not  insensible  to  the  easy  grace  and  the  piq- 
uancy of  his  letters ;  no  man  could  ever  pour  more  de- 
lightful twaddle  into  the  ear  of  a  great  friend ;  no  man 
could  more  delight  in  doing  it,  if  only  the  friend  were 
really  great.  I  am  aware  that  he  was  highly  cultivated, 
—  that  he  had  observed  widely  at  home  and  abroad,  — 
that  he  was  a  welcome  guest  in  distinguished  circles ; 
but  he  never  made  or  had  a  sterling  friend ;  and  the 
news  of  the  old  man's  death  caused  no  severer  shock 
than  if  one  of  his  Fayence  pipkins  had  broken. 

But  what  most  irks  me  is  the  absurd  dilettanteism 
and  presumption  of  the  man.  He  writes  a  tale  as  if 
he  were  giving  dignity  to  romance ;  he  applauds  tin 
artist  as  Dives  might  have  thrown  crumbs  to  Lazarus ; 
vain  to  the  last  degree  of  all  that  he  wrote  or  said,  he 
was  yet  too  fine  a  gentleman  to  be  called  author ;  if 
there  had  been  a  way  of  printing  books,  without  recourse 
to  the  vulgar  media  of  type  and  paper,  —  a  way  of  which 
titled  gentlemen  could  command  the  monopoly,  —  I 
think  he  would  have  written  more.  As  I  turn  over  the 
velvety  pages  of  his  works,  and  look  at  his  catalogues, 
his  bon-mots,  his  drawings,  his  affectations  of  magnifi- 


EDMUND  BURKE.  239 

ceuce,  I  seem  to  see  the  fastidious  old  man  shuffling 
with  gouty  step  up  and  down,  from  drawing-room  to  li 
brary,  —  stopping  here  and  there  to  admire  some  newly 
arrived  bit  of  pottery,  —  pulling  out  his  golden  snuff- 
box, and  whisking  a  delicate  pinch  into  his  old  nostrils, 
—  then  dusting  his  affluent  shirt-frill  with  the  tips  of  his 
dainty  fingers,  with  an  air  of  gratitude  to  Providence 
for  having  created  so  fine  a  gentleman  as  Horace  Wai- 
pole,  and  of  gratitude  to  Horace  Walpole  for  having 
created  so  fine  a  place  as  Strawberry  Hill. 

Edmund  Burke. 

T  TURN  from  this  ancient  specimen  of  titled  elegance 
-*-  to  a  consideration  of  Mr.  Burke,  with  much  the 
same  relief  with  which  I  would  go  out  from  a  perfumed 
drawing-room  into  the  breezy  air  of  a  June  morning. 
Lord  Kames  has  told  us  that  Mr.  Burke  preferred  oxen 
to  horses  for  field-labor ;  and  we  have  Burke's  letters 
to  his  bailiff,  showing  a  nice  attention  to  the  economies 
of  farming,  and  a  complete  mastery  of  its  working  de- 
tails. But  more  than  anywhere  else  does  his  agricul- 
tural sagacity  declare  itself  in  his  "  Thoughts  and  De- 
tails on  Scarcity."  * 

"Will  the  reader  pardon  me  the  transcript  of  a  pas- 
sage or  two  ?    "  It  is  a  perilous  thing  to  try  experiments 

*  Presented  to  William  Pitt,  1795. 


240  WET  DAYS. 

on  the  farmer.  The  farmer's  capital  (except  in  a  few 
persons,  and  in  a  very  few  places)  is  far  more  feeble 
than  is  commonly  imagined.  The  trade  is  a  very  poor 
trade ;  it  is  subject  to  great  risks  and  losses.  The  capital, 
such  as  it  is,  is  turned  but  once  in  the  year ;  in  some 
branches  it  requires  three  years  before  the  money  is 
paid ;  I  believe  never  less  than  three  in  the  turnip  and 

grass-land  course It  is  very  rare  that  the  most 

prosperous  farmer,  counting  the  value  of  his  quick  and 
dead  stock,  the  interest  of  the  money  he  -turns,  together 
with  his  own  wages  as  a  bailiff  or  overseer,  ever  does 
make  twelve  or  fifteen  per  centum  by  the  year  on  his 
capital.  In  most  parts  of  England  which  have  fallen 
within  my  observation,  I  have  rarely  known  a  farmer 
who  to  his  own  trade  has  not  added  some  other  employ- 
ment or  traffic,  that,  after  a  course  of  the  most  unre- 
mitting parsimony  and  labor,  and  persevering  in  his 
business  for  a  long  course  of  years,  died  worth  more 
than  paid  his  debts,  leaving  his  posterity  to  continue  in 
nearly  the  same  equal  conflict  between  industry  and 
want  in  which  the  last  predecessor,  and  a  long  line  of 
predecessors  before  him,  lived  and  died." 

In  confirmation  of  this  last  statement,  I  may  mention 
that  Samuel  Ireland,  writing  in  1792,  ("  Picturesque 
Views  on  the  River  Thames,")  speaks  of  a  farmer  named 
"Wapshote,  near  Chertsey,  whose  ancestors  had  resided 
on  the  place  ever  since  the  time  of  Alfred  the  Great ; 


EDMUND  BURKE.  241 

and  amid  all  the  chances  and  changes  of  centuries,  not 
one  of  the  descendants  had  either  bettered  or  marred 
his  fortunes.  The  truthfulness  of  the  story  is  confirmed 
in  a  number  of  the  "  Monthly  Review "  for  the  same 
year. 

Mr.  Burke  commends  the  excellent  and  most  useful 
works  of  his  "  friend  Arthur  Young,"  (of  whom  I  shall 
have  somewhat  to  say  another  time,)  but  regrets  that  he 
should  intimate  the  largeness  of  a  farmer's  profits.  He 
discusses  the  drill-culture,  (for  wheat,)  which,  he  says, 
is  well,  provided  "  the  soil  is  not  excessively  heavy,  or 
encumbered  with  large,  loose  stones,*  and  provided  the 
most  vigilant  superintendence,  the  most  prompt  activity, 
which  has  no  such  day  as  to-morrow  in  its  calendar,  com- 
bine to  speed  the  plough  ;  in  this  case  I  admit,"  he  says, 
"  its  superiority  over  the  old  and  general  methods." 
And  again  he  says,  —  "  It  requires  ten  times  more  of 
labor,  of  vigilance,  of  attention,  of  skill,  and,  let  me 
add,  of  good  fortune  also,  to  carry  on  the  business  of  a 
farmer  with  success,  than  what  belongs  to  any  other 
trade." 

May  not  a  farmer  take  a  little  pride  in  such  testi- 
mony as  this  ? 

One  of  his  biographers  tells  us,  that,  in  his  later 
years,  the  neighbors  saw  him  on  one  occasion,  at  his  home 

•  At  that  day,  horse-hoeing,  at  regular  intervals,  was  understood  to 
form  part  of  what  was  counted  drill-culture. 
16 


242  WET  DAYS. 

of  Beaconsfield,  leaning  xipon  the  shoulder  of  a  favorite 
old  horse,  (which  had  the  privilege  of  the  lawn,)  and 
sobbing.  Whereupon  the  gossiping  villagers  reported 
the  great  man  crazed.  Ay,  crazed,  —  broken  by  the 
memory  of  his  only  and  lost  son  Richard,  with  whom 
this  aged  saddle-horse  had  been  a  special  favorite,  — • 
crazed,  no  doubt,  at  thought  of  the  strong  young  hand 
whose  touch  the  old  beast  waited  for  in  vain,  —  crazed 
and  broken,  —  an  oak,  ruined  and  blasted  by  storms. 
The  great  mind  in  this  man  was  married  to  a  great 
heart. 

Goldsmith. 

T~\O  I  not  name  a  fitting  companion  for  a  wet  day 
•'V^  in  the  country,  when  I  name  Oliver  Goldsmith  ? 
Yet  he  can  tell  me  nothing  about  farming,  or  about 
crops.  He  knew  nothing  of  them  and  cared  nothing 
for  them.  He  would  have  made  the  worst  farmer  in 
the  world.  A  farmer  should  be  prudent  and  fore- 
sighted,  whereas  poor  Goldsmith  was  always  as  improv- 
ident as  a  boy.  A  fanner  should  be  industrious  and 
methodical :  Goldsmith  had  no  conception  of  either 
industry  or  method.  A  farmer  should  be  willing  to  be 
taught  every  day  of  his  life,  and  Goldsmith  was  willing 
to  be  taught  nothing. 

He  had  no  more  knowledge  of  gardening  and  of  its 
proper  appliances,  than  he  had  of  economy.     I  have 


GOLDSMITH.  243 

no  doubt  that  the  grafting  of  a  cherry-tree  would  have 
been  as  abstruse  a  problem  for  him  as  the  balancing 
of  his  account-book.  Nay,  if  we  may  believe  his  o\vn 
story,  he  had  very  little  eye  for  the  picturesque.  lie 
was  delighted  with  the  flat  land  and  canals  of  Holland, 
and  reckoned  them  far  prettier  than  the  hills  and  rocks 
of  Scotland.  Writing  to  an  early  friend  of  the  coun- 
try about  Leyden,  he  says,  "Nothing  can  equal  its 
beauty.  Wherever  I  turn  my  eyes,  fine  houses,  ele- 
gant gardens,  statues,  grottos,  vistas,  present  them- 
selves ;  but  when  you  enter  their  towns,  you  are 

charmed   beyond  description In  Scotland   hills 

and  rocks  intercept  every  prospect;  here,  'tis  all  a 
continued  plain.  The  Scotch  may  be  compared  to 
a  tulip  planted  in  dung;  but  I  never  see  a  Dutch- 
man in  his  own  house,  but  I  think  of  a  magnifi- 
cent Egyptian  temple  dedicated  to  an  ox."  I  have 
no  doubt  that  this  indifference  to  the  picturesque  as- 
pects of  Nature  was  as  honest  as  his  debts.  And  yet, 
for  all  this,  and  though  circled  about  by  rural  scenes, 
I  do  still  keep  his  "  Essays  "  or  his  "  Vicar "  in  my 
hand,  or  in  my  thought  most  lovingly.  He  carried 
with  him  out  of  Kilkenny  West  the  heart  of  an  Irish 
country-lad,  and  the  odor  of  the  meadows  of  West- 
meath  never  wholly  left  his  thought. 

The  world  is  accustomed  to  regard  his  little  novel, 
which  Dr.  Johnson  bargained  away  for  sixty  guineas, 


244  WET  DAYS. 

as  a  rural  tale :  it  is  so  quiet ;  it  is  so  simple ;  its  at- 
mosphere is  altogether  so  redolent  of  the  country. 
And  yet  all,  save  spine  few  critical  readers,  will  be 
surprised  to  learn  that  there  is  not  a  picture  of  natural 
scenery  in  the  book  of  any  length ;  and  wherever  an 
allusion  of  the  kind  appears,  it  does  not  bear  the  im- 
press of  a  mind  familiar  with  the  country,  and  prac-i 
tically  at  home  there.  The  Doctor  used  to  go  out^ 
upon  the  Edgeware  road,  —  not  for  his  love  of  trees, 
but  to  escape  noise  and  duns.  Yet  we  overlook  liter- 
alness,  charmed  as  we  are  by  the  development  of  his 
characters  and  by  the  sweet  burden  of  his  story.  The 
statement  may  seem  extraordinary,  but  I  could  tran- 
scribe every  rural,  out-of-door  scene  in  the  "  Vicar  of 
Wakefield  "  upon  a  single  half-page  of  foolscap.  Of 
the  first  home  of  the  Vicar  we  have  only  this  account : 
—  "  We  had  an  elegant  house,  situated  in  a  fine  coun- 
try and  a  good  neighborhood."  Of  his  second  home 
there  is  this  more  full  description  :  —  "Our  little  habi- 
tation was  situated  at  the  foot  of  a  sloping  hill,  sheltered 
with  a  beautiful  underwood  behind,  and  a  prattling  river 
before :  on  one  side  a  meadow,  on  the  other  a  green. 
My  farm  consisted  of  about  twenty  acres  of  excellent 
land,  having  given  a  hundred  pounds  for  my  predeces- 
sor's good-will.  Nothing  could  exceed  the  neatness  of 
my  little  enclosures :  the  elms  and  hedge-rows  appear- 
ing with  inexpressible  beauty.  My  house  consisted  of 


GOLDSMITH.  245 

but  one  story,  and  was  covered  with  thatch,  which  gave 
it  an  air  of  great  snugness."  It  is  quite  certain  that  an 
author  familiar  with  the  country,  and  with  a  memory 
stocked  with  a  multitude  of  kindred  scenes,  would  have 
given  a  more  determinate  outline  to  this  picture.  But 
whether  he  would  have  given  to  his  definite  outline  the 
fascination  that  belongs  to  the  vagueness  of  Goldsmith, 
is  wholly  another  question. 

Again,  in  the  sixth  chapter,  Mr.  Burchell  is  called 
upon  to  assist  the  Vicar  and  his  family  in  "  saving  an 
after-growth  of  hay."  "  Our  labors,"  he  says,  "  went  on 
lightly ;  we  turned  the  swath  to  the  wind."  It  is  plain 
that  Goldsmith  never  saved  much  hay ;  turning  the 
swath  to  the  wind  may  be  a  good  way  of  making  it, 
but  it  is  a  slow  way  of  gathering  it.  In  the  eighth  chap- 
ter of  this  charming  story,  the  Doctor  says,  — "  Our 
family  dined  in  the  field,  and  we  sat,  or  rather  reclined, 
round  a  temperate  repast,  our  cloth  spread  upon  the  hay. 
To  heighten  our  satisfaction,  the  blackbirds  answered 
each  other  from  opposite  hedges,  the  familiar  redbreast 
came  and  pecked  the  crumbs  from  our  hands,  and  every 
sound  seemed  but  the  echo  of  tranquillity."  This  is 
very  fascinating ;  but  it  is  the  veriest  romanticism  of 
country-life.  Such  sensible  girls  as  Olivia  and  Sophia 
would,  I  am  quite  sure,  never  have  spread  the  dinner- 
cloth  upon  hay,  which  would  most  certainly  have  set  all 
the  gravy  aflow,  if  the  platters  had  not  been  fairly  over- 


246  WET  DAYS. 

turned  ;  and  as  for  the  redbreasts,  (with  that  rollicking 
boy  Moses  in  my  mind,)  I  think  they  must  have  been 
terribly  tame  birds. 

But  this  is  only  a  farmer's  criticism,  —  a  Crispin  feel- 
ing the  bunions  on  some  Phidian  statue.  And  do  I 
think  the  less  of  Goldsmith,  because  he  wantoned  with 
the  literalism  of  the  country,  and  laid  on  his  prismatic 
colors  of  romance  where  only  white  light  lay  ?  Not  one 
whit.  It  only  shows  how  Genius  may  discard  utter 
faithfulness  to  detail,  if  only  its  song  is  charged  with 
a  general  simplicity  and  truthfulness  that  fill  our  ears 
and  our  hearts. 

As  for  Goldsmith's  verse,  who  does  not  love  it? 
Who  does  not  find  tender  reminders  of  the  country 
in  it? 

"  Sweet  was  the  sound,  when  oft,  at  evening's  close, 

Up  yonder  hill  the  village  murmur  rose: 

There,  as  I  passed  with  careless  steps  and  slow, 

The  mingled  notes  came  softened  from  below; 

The  swain  responsive  as  the  milkmaid  sung, 

The  sober  herd  that  lowed  to  meet  their  young; 

The  noisy  geese  that  gabbled  o'er  the  pool, 

The  playful  children  just  let  loose  from  school; 

The  watch-dog's  voice  that  bayed  the  whispering  wind, 

And  the  loud  laugh  that  spoke  the  vacant  mind;  — 

These  all  in  sweet  confusion  sought  the  shade, 

And  filled  each  pause  the  nightingale  had  made." 

And  yet  the  nightingale  is  a  myth  to  us  ;  the  milkmaid's 
song  conies  all  the  way  from  a  century  back  in  Ireland : 


GOLDSMITH.  247 

neither  one  nor  the  other  charms  our  ear,  listen  faith- 
fully as  we  may ;  but  there  is  a  subtile  rural  aroma  per- 
vading the  lines  I  have  quoted,  which  calls  at  every 
couplet  a  responsive  memory,  —  which  girls  welcome  as 
they  welcome  fresh  flowers,  —  which  boys  welcome  as 
they  welcome  childish  romp, — which  charms  middle 
age  away  from  its  fierce  wrestle  with  anxieties,  and  laps 
it  in  some  sweet  Elysium  of  the  past  Not  all  the  arts 
of  all  the  modernists,  —  not  "  Maud,"  with  its  garden- 
song, —  not  the  caged  birds  of  Killingworth,  singing  up 
and  down  the  village-street,  —  not  the  heather-bells  out 
of  which  the  springy  step  of  Jean  Ingelow  crushes 
perfume,  — shall  make  me  forget  the  old,  sweet,  even 
flow  of  the  "  Deserted  Village." 

Down  with  it,  my  boy  !  —  (from  the  third  shelf). 
G-O-L-D-S-M-I-T-H  —  a  worker  in  gold  —  is  on  the  back. 

And  I  sit  reading  it  to  myself,  as  a  fog  comes  welter- 
ing in  from  the  sea,  covering  all  the  landscape,  save 
some  half-dozen  of  the  city-spires,  which  peer  above 
the  drift  like  beacons. 


EiaHTH  DAY. 


Arthur  Young. 

"TN  these  notes  upon  the  Farm- Writers  and  the  Pas- 
*-  torals,  I  have  endeavored  to  keep  a  certain  chrono- 
logic order ;  and  upon  this  wet  morning  I  find  myself 
embayed  among  those  old  gentlemen  who  lived  in  the 
latter  part  of  the  eighteenth  century.  George  III.  is 
tottering  under  his  load  of  royalty ;  the  French  Revo- 
lution is  all  asmoke.  Fox  and  Sheridan  and  Burke 
and  the  younger  Pitt  are  launching  speeches  at  this 
Gallic  tempest  of  blood,  —  each  in  his  own  way.  Our 
American  struggle  for  liberty  has  been  fought  bravely 
out ;  and  the  master  of  it  has  retired  to  his  estates 
upon  the  Potomac.  There,  in  his  house  at  Mount  Ver- 
non,  he  receives  one  day  a  copy  of  the  early  volumes 
of  Young's  "Annals  of  Agriculture,"  with  the  author's 
compliments,  and  the  proffer  of  his  services  to  execute 
orders  for  seeds,  implements,  cattle,  or  "  anything  else 
that  might  contribute  to  the  General's  rural  amuse- 
ments." 


ARTHUR  YOUNG.  249 

The  General,  in  his  good  old-fashioned  way,  returns 
the  compliments  with  interest,  and  says,  "  I  will  give 
you  the  trouble,  Sir,  of  providing  and  sending  to  the 
care  of  Wakelin  Welch,  of  London,  merchant,  the  fol- 
lowing articles :  — 

"  Two  of  the  simplest  and  best-constructed  ploughs 
for  land  which  is  neither  very  heavy  nor  sandy ;  to  be 
drawn  by  two  horses ;  to  have  spare  shares  and 
coulters  ;  and  a  mould,  on  which  to  form  new  irons, 
when  the  old  ones  are  worn  out,  or  will  require  repair- 
ing. I  will  take  the  liberty  to  observe,  that,  some  years 
ago,  from  a  description  or  a  recommendation  thereof 
which  I  had  somewhere  met  with,  I  sent  to  England 
for  what  was  then  called  the  Rotherham  or  patent 
plough  ;  and,  till  it  began  to  wear  and  was  ruined  by  a 
bungling  country-smith,  that  no  plough  could  have  done 
better  work,  or  appeared  to  have  gone  easier  with  two 
horses ;  but,  for  want  of  a  mould,  which  I  neglected 
to  order  with  the  plough,  it  became  useless  after  the 
irons  which  came  with  it  were  much  worn. 

"  A  little  of  the  best  kind  of  cabbage  seed  for  field- 
culture. 

"  Twenty  pounds  of  the  best  turnip  seed. 

"  Ten  bushels  of  sainfoin  seed. 

"  Eight  bushels  of  the  winter  veches. 

"  Two  bushels  of  rye-grass  seed. 

"  Fifty  pounds  of  hop-clover  seed." 


250  WET  DAYS. 

The  curious  reader  may  be  interested  to  know  that 
this  shipment  of  goods,  somewhat  injured  by  stowage 
in  the  hold  of  the  ves.se!,  reached  Mount  Vernon  just 
one  week  after  Washington  had  left  it  to  preside  over 
the  sittings  of  the  Constitutional  Convention.  And 
amidst  all  the  eagerness  of  those  debates  under  which 
the  ark  of  our  nationality  was  being  hammered  into 
shape,  this  great  man  of  system  did  not  omit  to  send  to 
his  farm-manager  the  most  minute  directions  in  respect 
to  the  disposition  of  the  newly  arrived  seeds. 

Of  those  directions,  and  of  the  farm-method  at  the 
home  of  Washington,  I  may  possibly  have  something  to 
say  at  another  time :  I  have  named  the  circumstance 
only  to  show  that  Arthur  Young  had  a  world-wide  rep- 
utation as  an  agriculturist  at  this  day,  (178G-7,)  al- 
though he  lived  for  more  than  thirty  years  beyond  it. 

Arthur  Young  was  born  at  a  little  village  near  to 
Bury  St.  Edmund's,  (evermore  famous  as  the  scene  of 
Pickwickian  adventure,)  in  the  year  1741.  He  had  his 
schooling  like  other  boys,  and  was  for  a  time  in  a 
counting-room  at  Lynn,  where  he  plunged  into  litera- 
ture at  the  unfledged  age  of  seventeen,  by  writing  a 
tract  on  the  American-French  war ;  and  this  he  followed 
up  with  several  novels,  among  which  was  one  entitled 
"  The  Fair  American."  *  I  greatly  fear  that  the  book 

*  By  an  odd  coincidence,  I  observe  that  Washington  made  one  of 
his  first  shipments  of  tobacco  (after  his  marriage  with  Mrs.  Custis) 


ARTHUR  YOUNG.  251 

was  not  even  with  the  title :  it  has  certainly  slipped 
away  from  the  knowledge  of  all  the  bibliographers. 

At  twenty-two  he  undertook  the  management  of  the 
farm  upon  which  his  mother  was  living,  and  of  which  the 
lease  was  about  expiring :  here,  by  his  own  account,  he 
spent  a  great  deal  more  than  he  ever  reaped.  A  little 
later,  having  come  to  the  dignity  of  a  married  man,  he 
leased  a  farm  in  Essex,  (Samford  Hall,)  consisting  of 
some  three  hundred  acres.  This,  however,  he  aban- 
doned in  despair  very  shortly,  —  giving  a  brother-farmer 
a  hundred  pounds  to  take  it  off  his  hands.  Thereupon 
he  advertises  for  another  venture,  gallops  through  all 
the  South  of  England  to  examine  those  offered  to  his 
notice,  and  ends  with  renting  a  hundred-acre  farm  in 
Hertfordshire,  which  proved  of  "a  hungry  vitriolic 
gravel,"  where,  he  says,  "for  nine  years,  I  occupied 
the  jaws  of  a  wolf." 

Meantime,  however,  his  pen  has  not  been  idle  ;  for, 
previous  to  1773,  he  had  written  and  published  no  less 
than  sixteen  octavo  volumes  relating  mostly  to  agricul- 
tural subjects,  besides  two  ponderous  quartos  filled  with 
tabular  details  of  "  Experiments  on  the  Cultivation  of 
all  Sorts  of  Grain  and  Pulse,  both  in  the  Old  and  New 
Methods." 

This  last  was  the  most  pretentious  of  his  books,  the 

upon  a  vessel  called  "  The  Fair  American."  Did  the  ship  possibly 
give  a  name  to  the  ujvcl,  or  the  novel  a  name  to  the  ahip? 


252  WET  DAYS. 

result  of  most  painstaking  labor,  and  by  far  the  most 
useless  and  uninteresting ;  it  passed  long  ago  into  the 
waste-paper  shops  of  London.  A  very  full  synopsis  of 
it,  however,  may  be  found  in  four  or  five  consecutive 
numbers  of  the  old  "  Monthly  Review"  for  1771. 

The  great  fault  of  the  book  is,  (and  it  is  the  fault  of 
a  good  many  books,)  it  does  not  prove  what  the  author 
wants  to  prove.  He  had  hoped  by  a  long  -  continued 
course  of  minute  experiments  (and  those  detailed  in  his 
book  count  a  thousand,  and  extend  over  a  period  of 
five  years)  to  lay  down  an  exact  law  of  procedure  for 
the  guidance  of  his  brother-farmers.  But  the  brother- 
farmers  did  not  weary  themselves  over  his  tables ;  or  if 
they  did,  they  found  themselves  as  much  muddled  as  the 
experimenter  himself.  A  good  rule  for  dry  weather 
was  a  bad  one  for  wet ;  and  what  might  be  advisable 
for  Suffolk  would  be  wrong  in  Herts.  Upon  one  occa- 
sion, where  he  shows  a  loss  of  nearly  three  pounds  to 
the  acre  on  drilled  wheat,  against  a  loss  of  two  shillings 
fourpence  on  broadcast-sowing,  he  observes,  —  "  Rea- 
son is  so  often  mistaken  in  matters  of  husbandry,  that 
it  is  never  fully  to  be  trusted,  even  in  deducing  conse- 
quences evident  from  experiment  itself."  By  which  we 
may  safely  conclude  that  the  experiment  disappointed 
his  expectations.  It  must  be  remembered,  however, 
that  Mr.  Young  was  quite  youthful  and  inexperienced 
at  the  time  of  conducting  these  trials,  and  that  he  pos- 


ARTHUR  YOUNG.  253 

sessed  none  of  that  scientific  accuracy  which  character- 
izes the  analysis  of  farm-experiments  at  Rothamstead  or 
at  Bechelbron.  He  says,  with  a  diverting  sincerity, 
that  he  was  never  "  absent  more  than  a  single  week  at 
a  time  from  the  field  of  his  observations  without  leaving 
affairs  in  charge  of  a  trusty  bailiff."  He  was  too  full  of 
a  constitutional  unrest,  and  too  much  wedded  to  a  habit 
of  wide  and  rapid  generalization,  to  acquit  himself  well 
in  the  task  of  laborious  and  minute  observation. 

His  "  Tours  "  through  the  English  counties,  and  his 
"  Letters  to  Farmers,"  were  of  great  service,  and  were 
widely  read.  His  "  Farmer's  Calendar "  became  a 
standard  work.  He  entertained  at  one  time  the  project 
of  emigrating  to  America ;  but,  abandoning  this,  he 
enlisted  as  Parliamentary  reporter  for  the  "  Morning 
Post," — walking  seventeen  miles  to  his  country-home 
every  Saturday  evening,  and  returning  afoot  every 
Monday  morning.  His  energy  and  industry  were  im- 
mense ;  his  information  upon  all  subjects  connected  with 
agriculture,  whether  British  or  Continental,  entirely 
unmatched.  The  Empress  of  Russia  sent  three  lads  to 
him  to  be  taught  the  arts  of  husbandry,  —  at  which,  I 
venture,  his  plodding  neighbors  who  "  made  the  ends 
meet "  laughed  incontinently.  He  had  also  pupils  from 
France,  America,  Italy,  Poland,  Sicily,  and  Portugal. 

In  1784  he  commenced  the  publication  of  his  famous 
"  Anuals  of  Agriculture,"  which  grew  to  the  enormous 


254  WET  DAYS. 

mass  of  forty-five  volumes,  and  in  the  course  of  which 
dukes  and  princes  and  kings  and  republican  generals 
were  his  correspondents.  At  the  formation  of  the 
Board  of  Agriculture,  he  was  named  Secretary,  with  a 
salary  and  duties  that  kept  him  mostly  in  London' 
where  he  died  at  an  advanced  age  in  1820. 

It  is  a  somewhat  remarkable  fact,  that  a  man  so  dis- 
tinguished in  agriculture,  so  full  of  information,  so  ear- 
nest in  advocacy  of  improved  methods  of  culture,  so 
doggedly  industrious,  should  yet  never  have  undertaken 
farming  on  his  own  account  save  at  a  loss.  I  attribute 
this  very  much  to  his  zeal  for  experiments.  If  he  could 
establish,  or  controvert,  some  popular  theory  by  the  loss 
of  his  crop,  he  counted  it  no  loss,  but  a  gain  to  hus- 
bandry. Such  men  are  benefactors ;  such  men  need 
salaries ;  and  if  any  such  are  afloat  with  us,  unprovided 
for,  I  beg  to  recommend  them  for  clerkships  in  the 
Agricultural  Bureau  at  Washington ;  and  if  the  Com- 
missioner shall  hit  upon  one  Arthur  Young  among  the 
score  of  his  proteges,  the  country  will  be  better  repaid 
than  it  usually  is. 


Ellis  and  BakeweU. 

E  "  Practical  Farmer,"  and  other  books  of  Wil- 
Ham  Ellis,   Hertfordshire,   were    in    considerable 
vogue  in  the  days  of  Young,  and  received  a  little  faint 


ELLIS  AND  BAKE  WELL.  255 

praise  from  him,  while  he  says  that  through  half  his 
works  he  is  "  a  mere  old  woman." 

I  notice  that  Ellis  recommends  strongly  the  plough- 
ing-in  of  buckwheat,*  —  a  practice  which  Washington 
followed  extensively  at  Mount  Vernon.  He  tells  us 
that  a  cow  is  reckoned  in  his  day  to  pay  a  clear  profit 
of  four  pounds  a  year  (for  butter  and  cheese)  ;  but  he 
adds,  "  Certain  it  is  that  no  one  knows  what  a  cow  will 
pay,  unless  she  has  her  constant  bellyful  of  requisite 
meat."  And  his  talk  about  cider  has  such  a  relishy 
smack  of  a  "  mere  old  woman  "  that  I  venture  to  quote 
it. 

"  I  have  drank,"  he  says,  "  such  Pippin  Cyder,  as  I 
never  met  with  anywhere,  but  at  Ivinghoe,  just  under 
our  Chiltern  Hills,  where  their  Soil  is  partly  a  chalky 
Loam :  It  was  made  by  its  Owner,  a  Farmer,  and  on 
my  Recommendation  our  Minister  went  with  me  to 
prove  it,  and  gave  it  his  Approbation.  This  was  made 
from  the  Holland  Pippin :  And  of  such  a  wholesome 
Nature  is  the  Pippin  of  any  Sort  above  all  others,  that 
I  remember  there  is  a  Relation  of  its  wonderful  influ- 
ences, I  think  it  was  in  Germany :  A  Mother  and  two 
or  three  of  her  Sons  having  a  Trial  at  Law,  were  asked 
what  they  eat  and  drank  to  obtain  such  an  Age,  which 
was  four  or  five  hundred  years  that  they  all  made  up 
amongst  them  ;  they  answered,  chiefly  by  eating  the 
»  Practical  Farter,  by  William  Ellis,  London,  1759. 


256  WET  DAYS. 

Apple,  and  drinking  its  Juice.  And  I  knew  an  emi- 
nent, rich  Lawyer,  almost  eighty  Years  old,  who  was 
very  much  debilitated  through  a  tedious  Sickness,  on 
the  telling  him  this  Story,  got  Pippins  directly,  sliced 
them  to  the  number  of  a  dozen  at  a  Time,  and  infused 
them  in  Spring- Water,  and  made  it  his  common  Drink, 
till  Cyder  -  Time  came  on ;  also  he  fell  on  planting  a 
number  of  Pippin-Trees  in  order  to  his  enjoying  their 
salubrious  Quality,  and  a  fine  Plantation  there  is  at  this 
Day  in  his  Gardens  a  few  miles  from  me.  This  Practice 
of  his  drinking  the  Pippin  Liquor  and  Cyder,  answered 
extraordinary  well,  for  he  lived  several  Years  after,  in  a 
pretty  good  State  of  Health." 

The  next  name  I  come  upon,  in  this  rainy-day  ser- 
vice, starts  a  pleasant  picture  to  my  mind,  —  not  offset 
by  a  British  landscape,  but  by  one  of  our  own  New- 
England  hills.  A  group  of  heavy,  overgrown  chestnuts 
stand  stragglingly  upon  a  steep  ascent  of  pasture  ;  they 
are  flanked  by  a  wide  reach  of  velvety  turf  covering 
the  same  swift  slope  of  hill ;  gray  boulders  of  granite, 
scattered  here  and  there,  show  gleaming  spangles  of 
mica ;  clumps  of  pokeweed  lift  sturdily  a  massive  luxu- 
riance of  stems  and  a  great  growth  of  purple  berries  ; 
occasional  stumps  are  cushioned  over  with  mosses, 
green  and  gray  ;  and,  winding  among  stumps  and  rocks, 
there  comes  trending  down  the  green  hill-side  a  comely 
flock  of  great,  long-woolled  sheep :  they  nibble  at  stray 


ELLIS  AND  BAKEWELL.  257 

clover-blossoms;  they  lift  their  heads  and  look,  —  it  is 
only  the  old  dog  who  is  by  me,  —  they  know  him  ;  they 
straggle  on.  I  strew  the  salt  here  and  there  upon  a 
stone  ;  "  Dandie  "  pretends  to  sleep  ;  and  presently  the 
woolly  company  is  all  around  me,  —  the  "  Bakewell " 
flock. 

Robert  Bakewell,*  who  gave  the  name  to  this  race 
of  sheep,  (afterward  known  as  New-Leicesters,)  lived  at 
Dishley,  upon  the  highway  from  Leicester  to  Derby, 
and  not  very  far  from  that  Ashby  de  la  Zouche  where 
Scott  plants  the  immortal  scene  of  the  tournament  in 
"  Ivanhoe."  He  was  a  farmer's  son,  with  limited  edu- 
cation, and  with  limited  means ;  yet,  by  due  attention 
to  crosses,  he  succeeded  in  establishing  a  flock  which 
gained  a  world-wide  reputation.  His  first  letting  of 
bucks  at  some  fifteen  shillings  the  season  was  suc- 
ceeded in  the  year  1774  by  lettings  at  a  hundred  guineas 
a  head ;  and  there  were  single  animals  in  his  flock  from 
which  he  is  reported  to  have  received,  in  the  height  of 
his  fame,  the  sum  of  twelve  hundred  pounds. 

Nor  was  Bakewell  less  known  for  his  stock  of  neat 
cattle,  for  his  judicious  crosses,  and  for  a  gentleness  of 
management  by  which  he  secured  the  utmost  docility. 
A  writer  in  the  "  Gentleman's  Magazine "  of  his  date 

*  The  geologist,  Robert  Bakewell,  who  lived  many  years  later, 
wrote  of  the  "Influence  of  the  Soil  on  \Vool,"  and  for  that  reason, 
perhaps,  is  frequently  confounded  by  agricultural  writers  with  the 
great  breeder. 

IT 


258  WET  DAYS. 

says,  —  "  This  docility  seemed  to  run  through  the  herd 
At  an  age  when  most  of  his  brethren  are  either  foam- 
ing or  bellowing  with  rage  and  madness,  old  '  Comely  ' 
had  all  the  gentleness  of  a  lamb,  both  in  his  look  and 
action.  He  would  lick  the  hand  of  his  feeder ;  and  if 
any  one  patted  or  scratched  him,  he  would  bow  himself 
down  almost  on  his  knees." 

The  same  writer,  describing  Mr.  Bakewell's  kitchen, 
(which  served  as  hall,)  says,  —  "The  separate  joints 
and  points  of  each  of  the  more  celebrated  of  his  cattle 
were  preserved  in  pickle,  or  hung  up  there  side  by  side, 
—  showing  the  thickness  of  the  flesh  and  external  fat 
on  each,  and  the  smallness  of  the  offal.  There  were  also 
skeletons  of  the  different  breeds,  that  they  might  be 
compared  with  each  other,  and  the  comparative  differ- 
ence marked." 

Arthur  Young,  in  his  "  Eastern  Tour,"  says,  "  All  his 
bulls  stand  still  in  the  field  to  be  examined ;  the  way 
of  driving  them  from  one  field  to  another,  or  home,  is 
by  a  little  switch  ;  he  or  his  men  walk  by  their  side,  and 
guide  them  with  the  stick  wherever  they  please  ;  and 
they  are  accustomed  to  this  method  from  being  calves." 

He  was  a  tall,  stout,  broad  -  shouldered  man  of  a 
swarthy  complexion,  clad  usually  in  a  brown  loose  coat, 
with  scarlet  waistcoat,  leather  breeches,  and  top-boots. 
In  this  dress,  and  in  the  kitchen  I  have  above  described, 
he  entertained  Russian  princes,  French  and  German 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  259 

royal  dukes,  British  peers  and  farmers,  and  sight-seers 
of  every  degree.  All  his  guests,  whether  high  or  low. 
were  obliged  to  conform  to  the  farmer's  rules  :  "  Break- 
fast at  eight  o'clock,  dinner  at  one,  supper  at  nine,  bed 
at  eleven  o'clock  "  ;  at  half-past  ten  —  let  who  would  be 
there  —  he  knocked  out  his  last  pipe. 

He  left  no  book  for  future  farmers  to  maltreat, — 
not  even  so  much  as  a  pamphlet ;  and  the  sheep  that 
bore  his  name  are  now  refined  by  other  crosses,  or  are 
supplanted  by  the  long-woolled  troop  of  '•  New-Oxford- 
shire." 

William   Cowper. 

the  way  from  Leicestershire  to  London,  one 
passed,  iri  the  old  coach-days,  through  Northamp- 
ton ;  and  from  Northampton  it  is  one  of  the  most  charm- 
ing of  drives  for  an  agriculturist  over  to  the  town  of 
Newport-Pagnell.  I  lodged  there,  at  the  Swan  tavern, 
upon  a  July  night  some  twenty  years  gone  ;  and  next 
morning  I  rambled  over  between  the  hedge-rows  and 
across  meadows  to  the  little  village  of  "Western,  where 
I  lunched  at  the  inn  of  "  Cowper's  Oak."  The  house 
where  the  poet  had  lived  with  good  Mrs.  Unwin  was 
only  next  door,  and  its  front  was  quite  covered  over 
with  a  clambering  rose-tree.  '  The  pretty  waitress  of 
the  inn  showed  me  the  way,  and  a  wheezing  old  man  — 
half  gardener  and  half  butler  —  introduced  me  to  the- 


2CO  WET  DAYS. 

rooms  where  Cowper  had  passed  so  many  a  dreary  hour, 
and  where  he  had  been  cheered  by  the  blithe  company 
of  Cousin  Lady  Hesketh. 

My  usher  remembered  the  crazy  recluse,  and,  when 
we  had  descended  to  the  garden,  told  me  how  much  he, 
with  other  village  -  boys,  stood  in  awe  of  him,  —  and 
how  the  poet  used  to  walk  up  and  down  the  garden- 
alleys  in  dressing-gown  and  white-tasselled  cotton  cap, 
muttering  to  himself;  but  what  mutterings  some  of 
them  were ! 

"  Thy  silver  locks,  once  auburn  bright, 
Are  still  more  lovely  in  my  sight 
Than  golden  beams  of  orient  light, 
My  Mary ! 

"  For  could  I  view  nor  them  nor  thee, 
What  sight  worth  seeing  could  I  see  ? 
The  sun  would  rise  in  vain  for  me, 

My  Mary! 

"  Partakers  of  thy  sad  decline, 
Thy  hands  their  little  force  resign, 
Yet,  gently  pressed,  press  gently  mine, 
My  Mary! " 

Afterward  the  shuffling  old  usher  turns  a  key  in 
a  green  gate,  and  shows  me  into  the  "  Wilderness." 
Here  I  come  presently  upon  the  Temple,  —  sadly  shat- 
tered, —  and  upon  the  urns  with  their  mouldy  inscrip- 
tions ;  I  wander  through  the  stately  avenue  of  lindens 


WILLIAM  COWPER.  261 

to  the  Alcove,  and,  so  true  are  the  poet's  descriptions, 
I  recognize  at  once  the  seat  of  the  Throckmortons,  the 
"  Peasant's  Nest,"  the  "  Rustic  Bridge,"  and  far  away 
a  glimpse  of  the  spire  of  Olney. 

Plainly  as  I  see  to-day  the  farm-flat  of  Edgewood 
smoking  under  the  spring  rains  below  me,  I  see  again 
the  fat  meadows  that  lie  along  the  sluggish  Ouse  reek- 
ing with  the  heats  of  July.  And  I  bethink  me  of  the 
bewildered,  sensitive  poet,  shrinking  from  the  world, 
loving  Nature  so  dearly,  loving  friends  like  a  child,  lov- 
ing God  with  reverence,  and  yet  with  a  great  fear  that 
is  quickened  by  the  harsh  hammering  of  John  Newton's 
iron  Calvinism  into  a  wild  turbulence  of  terror.  From 
this  he  seeks  escape  in  the  walks  of  the  "  Wilderness," 
and  paces  moodily  up  and  down  from  temple  to  alcove, 
—  in  every  shady  recess  still  haunted  by  "  a  fearful 
looking-for  of  judgment,"  and  from  every  sunny  bit  of 
turf  clutching  fancies  by  eager  handful,  to  strew  over 
his  sweet  poem  of  the  "  Task." 

A  sweet  poem,  I  repeat,  though  not  a  finished  or  a 
grand  one ;  but  there  is  in  it  such  zealous,  earnest  over- 
flow of  country-love  that  we  farmers  must  needs  wel- 
come it  with  open  hearts. 

I  should  not  like  such  a  man  as  Cowper  for  a  tenant, 
where  any  bargains  were  to  be  made,  or  any  lambs  to 
be  killed ;  nor  do  I  think  that  the  mere  memory  of  his 
verse  would  have  put  me  upon  that  July  walk  from 


2G2  WET  DAYS. 

Newport  to  Weston ;  but  his  letters  and  his  sad  life, 
throughout  which  trees  and  flowers  were  made  almost 
his  only  confidants,  led  me  to  the  scene  where  that 
strange  marriage  with  Nature  was  solemnized.  And 
though  the  day  was  balmy,  and  the  sun  fairly  golden, 
the  garden  and  the  alley  and  the  trees  and  the  wilder- 
ness were  like  a  widow  in  her  weeds. 


Gilbert   White. 

ILBERT  WHITE,  of  Selborne,  belongs  to  this 
epoch ;  and  no  lover  of  the  country  or  of  country- 
things  can  pass  him  by  without  cordial  recognition  and 
genial  praise.  There  is  not  so  much  of  incident  or  of 
adventure  in  his  little  book  as  would  suffice  to  pepper 
the  romances  of  one  issue  of  a  weekly  paper  in  our  day. 
The  literary  mechanicians  would  find  in  him  no  artful 
contrivance  of  parts  and  no  rhetorical  jangle  of  lan- 
guage. It  is  only  good  Parson  White,  who,  wandering 
about  the  fields  and  the  brook-sides  of  Selborne,  scruti- 
nizes with  rare  clearness  and  patience  a  thousand  mir- 
acles of  God's  providence,  in  trees,  in  flowers,  in  stones, 
in  birds,  —  and  jots  down  the  story  of  his  scrutiny  with 
such  simplicity,  such  reverent  trust  in  His  power  and 
goodness,  such  loving  fondness  for  almost  every  created 
thing,  that  the  reading  of  it  charms  like  Walton's  story 
of  the  fishes. 


GILBERT  WHITE.  2C3 

"We  Americans,  indeed,  do  not  altogether  recognize 
his  chaffinches  and  his  titlarks ;  his  claws  and  his  fern- 
owl are  strange  to  us  ;  and  his  robin-redbreast,  though 
undoubtedly  the  same  which  in  our  nursery-days  flitted 
around  the  dead  "  Children  in  the  Wood,"  (while  tears 
stood  in  our  eyes.)  and 

"  painfully 
Did  cover  them  with  leaves," 

is  by  no  means  our  American  redbreast.  For  one,  I 
wish  it  were  otherwise ;  I  wish  with  all  my  heart  that  I 
could  identify  the  old,  pitying,  feathered  mourners  in 
the  British  wood  with  the  joyous,  rollicking  singer  who 
perches  every  sunrise,  through  all  the  spring,  upon  the 
thatch  of  the  bee  -  house,  within  stone's  -  throw  of  my 
window,  and  stirs  the  dewy  air  with  his  loud  bravura. 

Notwithstanding,  however,  the  dissimilarity  of  species, 
the  studies  of  this  old  naturalist  are  directed  with  a  nice 
particularity,  and  are  colored  with  an  unaffected  home- 
liness, which  are  very  charming ;  and  I  never  hear  the 
first  whisk  of  a  swallow's  wing  in  summer  but  I  feel 
an  inclination  to  take  down  the  booklet  of  the  good  old 
Parson,  drop  into  my  library-chair,  and  follow  up  at  my 
leisure  all  the  gyrations  and  flutterings  and  incuba- 
tions of  all  the  hirundines  of  Selborne.  Every  country- 
liver  should  own  the  book,  and  be  taught  from  it — 
nicety  of  observation. 


264  WET  DAYS 

Trusler  and  Farm-Profits. 

THERE  was  another  clergyman  of  a  different  stamp, 
—  the  Reverend  John  Trusler  of  Cobham,  Surrey, 
—  who  wrote  about  this  time  a  book  on  chronology,  a 
few  romances,  a  book  on  law,  and  another  upon  farming. 
He  commenced  public  life  as  an  apothecary ;  from  his 
drug-shop  he  went  to  the  pulpit,  thence  to  book-selling, 
and  finally  to  book-making.  I  am  inclined  to  think  that 
he  found  the  first  of  these  two  trades  the  more  profita- 
ble one  :  it  generally  is. 

Mr.  Trusler  introduces  his  agricultural  work  by  de- 
claring that  it  "  contains  all  the  knowledge  necessary 
in  the  plain  business  of  farming,  unincumberecl  with 
theory,  speculation,  or  experimental  inquiry " ;  —  by 
which  it  will  be  seen  that  the  modesty  of  the  author 
was  largely  overborne  by  the  enterprise  of  the  book- 
seller. The  sole  value  of  his  treatise  lies  in  certain  statis- 
tical details  with  regard  to  the  cost  and  profits  of  differ- 
ent crops,  prices  of  food,  rates  of  wages,  etc.  By  his 
showing,  the  profit  of  an  acre  of  wheat  in  1780  was  £2 
10s. ;  of  barley,  £3  3s.  Gd. ;  of  buckwheat,  £2  19s. ;  and  a 
farm  of  one  hundred  and  fifty  acres,  judiciously  man- 
aged, would  leave  a  profit  of  £379. 

These  estimates  of  farm-profits,  however,  at  all  times, 
are  very  deceptive.  A  man  can  write  up  his  own  bal- 
ance -  sheet,  but  be  cannot  make  up  his  neighbor's. 


TRUSLER  AND  FARM-PROFITS.  265 

There  will  be  top  many  screws — or  pigs  —  loose,  which 
be  cannot  take  into  the  reckoning.  The  agricultural 
journals  give  us  from  time  to  time  the  most  alluring 
"  cash-accounts  "  of  farm-revenue,  which  make  me  re- 
gard, for  a  month  or  two  thereafter,  every  sober-sided 
farmer  I  meet  as  a  Rasselas,  —  "  choring  "  and  "  team- 
ing it "  in  a  Happy  Valley ;  but  shortly  I  come  upon 
some  retired  citizen,  turned  farmer,  and  active  member 
of  a  Horticultural  Society,  slipping  about  the  doors  of 
some  "  Produce  and  Commission  Store  "  for  his  winter's 
stock  of  vegetables,  butter,  and  fruits,  —  and  the  fact 
impresses  me  doubtfully  and  painfully.  It  is  not  often, 
unfortunately,  that  printed  farm-accounts  —  most  of  all, 
model-farm-accounts  —  will  bear  close  scrutiny.  Some- 
times there  is  delicate  reservation  of  any  charge  for 
personal  labor  or  superintendence ;  sometimes  an  equally 
cheerful  reticence  in  respect  to  any  interest  upon  capi- 
tal ;  and  in  nearly  all  of  them  such  miniature  expression 
of  the  cost  of  labor  as  gives  a  very  shaky  consistency 
to  the  exhibit. 

Fanners,  I  am  aware,  are  not  much  given  to  figures  ; 
but  outside  "  averagers  "  are  ;  and  agricultural  writers, 
if  they  indulge  in  figures,  ought  to  show  some  decent 
respect  for  the  proprieties  of  arithmetic.  I  have  before 
me  now  the  "  Bi-Monthly  Report  of  the  United  States 
Agricultural  Department  for  January  and  February, 
1864,"  in  the  course  of  which  it  is  gravely  asserted, 


266  WET  DAYS. 

that,  in  the  event  of  a  certain  suggeste.d  tax  on  tobacco, 
"  the  tobacco-grower  would  find  at  the  end  of  the  year 
two  hundred  and  ten  per  cent,  of  his  crops  unsold." 
Now  I  am  not  familiar  with  the  tobacco-crop,  and  still 
less  familiar  with  the  Washington  schemes  of  taxation  ; 
but  whatever  may  be  the  exigencies  of  the  former,  and 
whatever  may  be  the  enormities  of  the  latter,  I  find 
myself  utterly  unable  to  measure,  even  proximately,  the 
misfortune  of  a  tobacco-grower  who  should  find  himself 
stranded  with  two  hundred  and  ten  per  cent,  of  his  crop, 
after  his  sales  were  closed !  It  is  plainly  a  case  involvr 
ing  a  pretty  large  quid  pro  quo,  if  it  be  not  a  clear  on0 
of  nisi  quid. 

Sinclair  and  Others. 

SIR  JOHN  SINCLAIE,  so  honorably  known  in 
connection  with  British  agriculture,  dealt  with  an 
estate  in  Scotland  of  a  hundred  thousand  acres.  He 
parcelled  this  out  in  manageable  farms,  advanced 
money  to  needy  tenants,  and  by  his  liberality  and  en- 
terprise gave  enormous  increase  to  his  rental.  He  also 
organized  the  first  valid  system  for  obtaining  agricul- 
tural statistics  through  the  clergymen  of  the  different 
parishes  in  Scotland,  thus  bringing  together  a  vast 
amount  of  valuable  information,  which  was  given  to 
the  public  at  intervals  between  1790  and  1798.  And 


SINCLAIR  AND  OTHERS.  2G7 

> 

I  notice  with  interest  that  the  poet  Burns  was  a  con- 
tributor to  one  of  these  volumes,*  over  the  signature 
of  "  A  Peasant,"  in  which  he  gives  account  of  a  farm- 
ers' library  established  in  his  neighborhood,  and  adds, 
in  closing,  —  "A  peasant  who  can  read  and  enjoy  such 
books  is  certainly  a  much  superior  being  to  his  neigh- 
bor, who,  perhaps,  stalks  beside  his  team,  very  little  re- 
moved, except  in  shape,  from  the  brutes  he  drives." 

There  is  reason  to  believe  that  Sir  John  Sinclair,  at 
one  time,  —  in  the  heat  of  the  French  Revolution,  — 
projected  emigration  to  America;  and  I  find  in  one  of 
Washington's  letters  f  to  him  the  following  allusion  to 
the  scheme :  —  "To  have  such  a  tenant  as  Sir  John 
Sinclair  (however  desirable  it  might  be)  is  an  honor  I 
dare  not  hope  for ;  and  to  alienate  any  part  of  the  fee- 
simple  estate  of  Mount  Vernon  is  a  measure  I  am  not 
inclined  to." 

Another  British  cultivator  of  this  period,  whose  name 
is  associated  with  the  Mount  Vernon  estate,  was  Rich- 
ard Parkinson  of  Doncaster,  who  wrote  "  The  Ex- 
perienced Farmer,"  and  who  not  only  proposed  at 
one  time  to  manage  one  of  the  Washington  farms,  but 
did  actually  sail  for  America,  occupied  a  place  called 
Orange-Hill,  near  Baltimore,  for  a  year  or  more,  trav- 
elled through  the  country,  making  what  sale  he  could 

*  Third  volume  Statistics,  p.  598. 

t  Dated  December,  1796.  Sparks's  Life  and  Letters,  Vol.  XII.  p. 
828. 


268  WET  DAYS. 

of  his  "  Experienced  Farmer,"  and,  on  his  return  to 
England,  published  "  A  Tour  in  America,""  which  is  to 
be  met  with  here  and  there  upon  the  top-shelves  of 
old  libraries,  and  which  is  not  calculated  to  encourage 
immigration. 

He  sets  out  by  saying,  — ';  The  great  advantages 
held  out  by  different  authors,  and  men  travelling  from 
America  with  commission  to  sell  land,  have  deluded 
persons  of  all  denominations  with  an  idea  of  becoming 
land-owners  and  independent.  They  have,  however, 
been  most  lamentably  disappointed,  —  particularly  the 
farmers,  and  all  those  that  have  purchased  land ;  for, 
notwithstanding  the  low  price  at  which  the  American 
lauds  are  sold,  the  property  of  the  soil  is  such  as  to  make 
it  not  to  pay  for  labor  ;  therefore  the  greater  part  have 
brought  themselves  and  their  families  to  total  ruin." 

He  is  distressed,  too,  by  the  independence  of  the  la- 
borers, —  being  "  often  forced  to  rise  in  the  morning 
to  milk  the  cows,  when  the  servants  were  in  bed." 

Among  other  animals  which  he  took  with  him,  he 
mentions  "  two  race-horses,  ten  blood  mares,  a  bull  and 
cow  of  the  North  Devon,  a  bull  and  cow  of  the  no- 
horned  York,  a  cow  (with  two  calves  and  in  calf  again) 
of  the  Holderness,  five  boar-  and  seven  sow-pigs  of  four 
different  kinds." 

On  arriving  at  Norfolk,  Virginia,  in  November,  he 
inquired  for  hay,  and  "  was  informed  that  American 


SINCLAIR  AND   OTHERS.  269 

cuttle  subsisted  on  blades  and  slops,  and  that  no  liay 
was  to  be  had."  He  found,  also,  that  "  American  cows 
eat  horse-dung  as  naturally  as  an  English  cow  eats  hay ; 
and  as  America  grows  no  grass,  the  street  is  the  cheap- 
est place  to  keep  them  in."  This  would  make  an  ad- 
mirable item  for  the  scientific  column  of  the  London 
"  Athenzeum."  Again  he  says,  with  a  delightful  point- 
edness  of  manner,  —  "  No  transaction  in  America  re- 
flects any  discredit  on  a  man,  unless  he  loses  money  by 
it  ....  I  remember  an  Englishman,  after  repeating 
all  the  things  that  could  fill  a  stranger's  mind  with 
trouble  and  horror,  said,  with  a  very  heavy  sigh,  as 
he  was  going  out  of  the  house,  '  It  is  the  Devil's  own 
country,  to  be  sure  ! '  * 

The  "  Times  "  newspaper  never  said  a  prettier  word 
than  that! 

Mr.  Robert  Brown  was  a  worthier  man,  and,  I  sus- 
pect, a  better  farmer ;  he  was  one  of  the  earlier  types 
of  those  East-Lothian  men  who  made  their  neighbor- 
hood the  garden  of  Scotland.  He  was  also  the  author 
of  a  book  on  "  Rural  Affairs,"  the  editor  for  fifteen 
years  of  the  well-known  "  Edinburgh  Farmers'  Mag- 
azine," and  (if  I  am  not  mistaken)  communicated  the 
very  valuable  article  on  "  Agriculture  "  to  the  old  "  En- 
cyclopaedia Britannica." 

At  this  period,  too,  I  find  an  Earl  of  Dunclonald 
(Archibald  Cochrane)  writing  upon  the  relations  of 


£70  WET  DAYS. 

chemistry  to  agriculture,  —  and  a  little  later,  Richard 
Kinvan,  F.  R.  S.,  indulging  in  vagaries  upon  the  same 
broad,  and  still  unsettled,  subject 

Joseph  Cradock,  a  quiet,  cultivated  gentleman,  who 
had  been  on  terms  of  familiarity  with  Johnson,  Gar- 
rick,  and  Goldsmith,  published  in  1775  his  "Village 
r.Ifinoirs,"  in  which  Lancelot  Brown  has  a  little  fun 
pointed  at  him,  under  the  name  of  "  Layout,"  the  gen- 
eral "  undertaker  "  for  gardens.  Sir  Uvedale  Price, 
too,  a  man  of  somewhat  stronger  calibre,  and  of  great 
taste,  (fully  demonstrated  on  his  own  place  of  Foxley,) 
made  poor  Brown  the  target  for  some  well-turned  wit- 
ticisms, and,  what  was  far  better,  demonstrated  the  near 
relationship  which  should  always  exist  between  the 
aims  of  the  landscape-painter  and  those  of  the  land- 
scape-gardener. I  am  inclined  to  think  that  Brown 
was  a  little  unfairly  used  by  these  new  writers,  and  that 
he  had  won  a  success  which  provoked  a  great  deal  of 
jealousy.  A  popularity  too  great  is  always  dangerous. 
Sir  Uvedale  was  a  man  of  strong  conservative  tenden- 
cies, and  believed  no  more  in  the  levelling  of  men  than 
in  the  levelling  of  hills.  He  found  his  love  for  the 
picturesque  sated  in  many  of  those  hoary  old  avenues 
which,  under  Brown,  had  been  given  to  the  axe.  I  sus- 
pect he  would  have  forgiven  the  presence  of  a  clipped 
yew  in  a  landscape  where  it  had  thriven  for  centuries  ; 
the  moss  of  age  could  give  picturesqueness  even  to 


OLD  AGE  OF  FARMERS.  271 

formality.  He  speaks  somewhere  of  the  kindly  work 
of  his  uncle,  who  had  disposed  his  walks  so  as  to  be  a 
convenience  to  the  poor  people  of  an  adjoining  parish, 
and  adds,  with  curious  naivete,  —  "  Such  attentive  kind- 
nesses are  amply  repaid  by  affectionate  regard  and  rev- 
erence ;  and  were  they  general  throughout  the  king- 
dom, they  would  do  much  more  towards  guarding  us 
against  democratical  opinions  than  '  twenty  thousand 
soldiers  armed  in  proof.'" 

Richard  Knight  (a  brother  of  the  distinguished  hor- 
ticulturist) illustrated  the  picturesque  theory  of  Price 
in  a  passably  clever  poem,  called  "  The  Landscape," 
which  had  not,  however,  enough  of  outside  merit  to 
keep  it  alive.  Humphrey  Repton,  a  professional  de- 
signer of  gardens,  whose  work  is  to  be  found  in  almost 
every  county  of  England,  took  issue  with  Price  in 
respect  to  his  picturesque  theory,  —  as  became  an  in- 
dependent gardener  who  would  not  recognize  allegiance 
to  the  painters.  But  the  antagonism  was  only  one  of 
those  petty  wars  about  non-essentials,  and  significance 
of  terms,  into  which  eager  book-makers  are  so  apt  to 
run. 

Old  Age  of  Farmers. 

TN  the  course  of  one  of  my  earlier  Wet  Days  I  took 
-*-  occasion  to  allude  to  the  brave  old  age  that  was 
reached  by  the  classic  veterans,  —  Xenophon,  Cato, 


272  WET  DAYS. 

and  Varro ;  and  now  I  find  among  the  most  eminent 
British  agriculturists  and  gardeners  of  the  close  of  the 
last  century  a  firm  grip  on  life  that  would  have  matched 
the  hardihood  of  Cato.  Old  Abercrombie  of  Preston 
Pans,  as  we  have  already  seen,  reached  the  age  of 
eighty.  Walpole,  though  I  lay  no  claim  to  him  as 
farmer  or  gardener,  yet,  thanks  to  the  walks  and  gar- 
den-work of  Strawberry  Hill,  lived  to  the  same  age. 
Philip  Miller  was  an  octogenarian.  Lord  Kames  was 
aged  eighty-seven  at  his  death  (1782).  Arthur  Young, 
though  struggling  with  blindness  in  his  later  years, 
had  accumulated  such  stock  of  vitality  by  his  out-door 
life  as  to  bridge  him  well  over  into  the  present  century : 
he  died  in  1820,  aged  seventy-nine.  Parson  Trusler, 
notwithstanding  his  apothecary-schooling,  lived  to  be 
eighty.  In  1826  died  Joseph  Cradock  of  the  "Vil- 
lage Memoirs,"  and  a  devoted  horticulturist,  aged 
eighty-five.  Three  years  after,  (1829,)  Sir  Uvedale 
Price  bade  final  adieu  to  his  delightful  seat  of  Foxley, 
at  the  age  of  eighty-three.  Sir  John  Sinclair  lived 
fairly  into  our  own  time,  (1835,)  and  was  eighty-one 
at  his  death. 

William  Speechley,  whom  Johnson  calls  the  best  gar- 
dener of  his  time,  and  who  established  the  first  effec- 
tive system  of  hot-house  culture  for  pines  in  England, 
died  in  1819,  aged  eighty-six ;  and  in  the  same  year, 
William  Marshal,  a  voluminous  agricultural  writer  and 


OLD  AGE   OF  FARMERS.  273 

active  farmer,  died  at  the  age  of  eighty.  And  I  must 
mention  one  more,  Dr.  Andrew  Duncan,  a  Scotch  phy- 
sician, who  cultivated  his  garden  with  his  own  hands, 
—  inscribing  over  the  entrance-gate,  "  Hinc  sahis,  — 
<md  who  was  the  founder  of  the  Horticultural  Society 
of  Edinburgh.  This  hale  old  doctor  died  in  1828,  at 
the  extreme  age  of  eighty-four ;  and  to  the  very  last 
year  of  his  life  he  never  omitted  going  up  to  the  top 
of  Arthur's  Seat  every  May-Day  morning,  to  bathe 
his  forehead  in  the  summer's  dew. 

As  a  country -liver,  I  like  to  contemplate  and  to  boast 
of  the  hoary  age  of  these  veterans.  The  inscription 
of  good  old  Dr.  Duncan  was  not  exaggerated.  Every 
man  who  digs  his  own  garden,  and  keeps  the  weeds 
down  thoroughly,  may  truthfully  place  the  same  writing 
over  the  gate,  —  "  Hinc  solus  "  (wherever  he  may  place 
his  "  Hinc  pecunia ").  Nor  is  the  comparative  safety 
of  active  gardening  or  farming  pursuits  due  entirely 
to  the  vigorous  bodily  exercise  involved,  but  quite  as 
much,  it  seems  to  me,  to  that  enlivening  and  freshening 
influence  which  must  belong  to  an  intimate  and  loving 
and  intelligent  companionship  with  Nature.  It  may  be 
an  animal  view  of  the  matter,  —  but,  in  estimating  the 
comparative  advantages  and  disadvantages  of  a  coun- 
try-life, I  think  we  take  too  little  account  of  that  glow 
and  exhilaration  of  the  blood  which  come  of  every- 
day dealings  with  the  ground  and  flowers  and  trees, 
18 


274  WET  DAYS. 

and  which,  as  age  approaches,  subside  into  a  calm 
equanimity  that  looks  Death  in  the  face  no  more  fear- 
ingly  than  if  it  were  a  frost.  I  .have  gray-haired  neigh- 
bors around  me  who  have  come  to  a  hardy  old  age  upon 
their  little  farms,  —  buffeting  all  storms,  —  petting  the 
cattle  which  have  come  down  to  them  from  ten  gen- 
erations of  short-lived  kine,  gone  by,  —  trailing  ancient 
vines,  that  have  seen  a  quarter  of  a  century  of  life, 
over  their  door-steps,  —  turning  over  soil,  every  cheery 
season  of  May,  from  which  they  have  already  gathered 
fifty  harvests  ;  and  I  cannot  but  regard  their  serene 
philosophy,  and  their  quiet,  thankful,  and  Christian  en- 
joyment of  the  bounties  of  Nature,  as  something  quite 
as  much  to  be  envied  as  the  distinctions  of  town-craft. 
I  ask  myself,  —  If  these  old  gentlemen  had  plunged 
into  the  whirlpool  of  a  city  five-and-fifty  years  ago, 
would  they  have  been  still  adrift  upon  this  tide  of  time, 
where  we  are  all  serving  our  apprenticeships  ?  —  and 
if  so,  would  they  have  worn  the  same  calm  and  cheer- 
ful equanimity  amid  the  harvests  of  traffic  or  the  blight 
of  a  panic  ?  —  and  if  not  adrift,  would  they  have  car- 
ried a  clearer  and  more  justifying  record  to  the  hearing 
of  the  Great  Court  than  they  will  carry  hence  when 
our  village-bell  doles  out  the  funeral  march  for  them  ? 

The  rain  is  beating  on  my  windows ;  the  rain  is 
beating  on  the  plain ;  a  mist  is  driving  in  from  the 
Sound,  over  which  I  see  only  the  spires,  —  those  Chris- 


OLD  AGE  OF  FARMERS.  275 

tian  beacons.  And  (by  these  hints,  that  always  fret  the 
horizon)  calling  to  mind  that  bit  of  the  best  of  all  pray- 
ers, " Lead  us  not  into  temptation"  it  seems  to  me  that 
many  a  country-liver  might  transmute  it  without  offence, 
and  in  all  faith,  into  words  like  these,  —  "  Lead  us  not 
into  cities."  To  think  for  a  moment  of  poor  farmer 
Burns,  with  the  suppers  of  Edinburgh,  and  the  orgies 
of  the  gentlemen  of  the  Caledonian  hunt,  inflaming  his 
imagination  there  in  the  wretched  chamber  of  his  low 
farm-house  of  Ellisland ! 

But  all  this,  down  my  last  two  pages,  relates  to  the 
physical  and  the  moral  aspects  of  the  matter,  —  aspects' 
which  are,  surely,  richly  worthy  of  consideration.  The 
question  whether  country-life  and  country-pursuits  will 
bring  the  intellectual  faculties  to  their  strongest  bent 
is  quite  a  distinct  one.  There  may  be  opportunity  for 
culture ;  but  opportunity  counts  for  nothing,  except  it 
occur  under  conditions  that  prompt  to  its  employment. 
The  incitement  to  the  largest  efforts  of  which  the  mind 
is  capable  comes  ordinarily  from  mental  attrition,  —  an 
attrition  for  which  the  retirement  demanded  by  rural 
pursuits  gives  little  occasion.  Milton  would  never  have 
come  to  his  stature  among  pear-trees,  —  nor  Newton,  nor 
Burke.  They  may  have  made  first-rate  farmers  or  hor- 
ticulturists ;  they  may  have  surpassed  all  about  them  ; 
but  their  level  of  action  would  have  been  a  far  lower 
one  than  that  which  they  actually  occupied.  There  is  a 


276  WET  DAYS. 

great  deal  of  balderdash  written  and  talked  upon  this 
subject,  which  ought  to  have  an  end ;  it  does  not  help 
farming,  it  does  not  help  the  world,  —  simply  because 
it  is  untrue.  Rural  life  offers  charming  objects  of 
study  ;  but  to  most  minds  it  does  not  offer  the  prompt- 
ings for  large  intellectual  exertion.  It  ripens  health- 
fully all  the  receptive  faculties  ;  it  disposes  to  that  judi- 
cial calmness  of  mind  which  is  essential  to  clearness 
and  directness  of  vision ;  but  it  does  not  kindle  the 
heat  of  large  and  ambitious  endeavor.  Hence  we  often 
find  that  a  man  who  has  passed  the  first  half  of  his  life 
in  comparative  isolation,  cultivating  his  resources  qui- 
etly, unmoved  by  the  disturbances  and  the  broils  of 
civic  life,  will,  on  transfer  to  public  scenes,  and  stirred 
by  that  emulation  which  comes  of  contact  with  the 
world,  feel  all  his  faculties  lighted  with  a  new  glow, 
and  accomplish  results  which  are  as  much  a  wonder  to 
himself  as  to  others. 


Burns  and  Bloomfield. 

T  HAVE  alluded  to  the  poet-farmer  Burns,  —  a  cap. 
-*-  ital  ploughman,  a  poor  manager,  an  intemperate 
lover,  a  sad  reveller,  a  stilted  letter-writer,  a  rare  good- 
fellow,  and  a  poet  whose  poems  will  live  forever.  It  is 
no  wonder  he  did  not  succeed  ns  farmer ;  Moss-giel  had 
an  ugly,  wet  subsoil,  and  draining-tiles  were  as  yet  not 


BURNS  AND  BLOOMFIELD.  277 

in  vogue  ;  but  from  all  the  accounts  I  can  gather,  there 
was  never  a  truer  furrow  laid  than  was  laid  by  Robert 
Burns  in  his  days  of  vigor,  upon  that  same  clamp  upland 
of  Moss-giel ;  his  "  fearings  "  were  all  true,  and  his  head- 
lands as  clear  of  draggled  sod  as  if  he  had  used  the  best 
"  Ruggles,  Nourse,  and  Mason  "  of  our  time.  Alas  for 
the  daisies !  he  must  have  turned  over  perches  of  them 
in  his  day  ;  and  yet  only  one  has  caught  the  glory  of 
his  lamentation ! 

Ellisland,  where  he  went  later,  and  where  he  hoped 
to  redeem  his  farm-promise,  was  not  over-fertile  ;  it  had 
been  hardly  used  by  scurvy  tenants  before  him,  and 
was  so  stony  that  a  rain-storm  made  a  fresh-rolled  field 
of  sown  barley  look  like  a  paved  street  He  tells  us 
this  ;  and  we  farmers  know  what  it  means.  But  it  lay 
in  Nithsdale ;  and  the  beauty  of  Nithsdale  shed  a  regal 
splendor  on  his  home.  It  was  the  poet  that  had  chosen 
the  farm,  and  not  the  grain-grower. 

Then  there  were  the  "  callants "  coming  from  Edin- 
burgh, from  Dumfries,  from  London,  from  all  the  world, 
to  have  their  "  crack  "  with  the  peasant-poet,  who  had 
sung  the  "  Lass  of  Ballochmyle."  Can  this  man,  whose 
tears  drip  (in  verse)  for  a  homeless  field-mouse,  keep  by 
the  plough,  when  a  half-score  of  good-fellows  are  up  * 
from  Dumfries  to  see  him,  and  when  John  Barleycorn 
stands  frothing  in  the  cupboard  ? 

Consider,  again,  that  his  means,  notwithstanding  the 


273  WET  DAYS. 

showy  and  short-lived  generosity  of  his  Edinburgh 
friends,  enabled  him  only  to  avail  himself  of  the  old 
Scotch  plough;  his  harrow,  very  likely,  had  wooden 
teeth;  he  could  venture  nothing  for  the  clearing  of 
gorse  and  broom ;  he  could  enter  upon  no  system  of 
drainage,  even  of  the  simple  kind  recommended  by  Lord 
Kames ;  he  had  hardly  funds  to  buy  the  best  quality  of 
seed,  and  none  at  all  for  "  liming,"  or  for  "  wrack  "  from 
the  shore.  Even  the  gift  of  a  pretty  heifer  he  repays 
with  a  song. 

Besides  all  this,  he  was  exciseman  ;  and  he  loved 
galloping  over  the  hills  in  search  of  recreants,  and  cosy 
sittings  in  the  tap  of  the  "  Jolly  Beggars  "  of  Mauchline, 
better  than  he  loved  a  sight  of  the  stunted  barley  of 
Ellisland. 

No  wonder  that  he  left  his  farm  ;  no  wonder  that  he 
went  to  Dumfries,  —  shabby  as  the  street  might  be 
where  he  was  to  live ;  no  wonder,  that,  with  his  mad 
pride  and  his  impulsive  generosity,  he  died  there,  leav- 
ing wife  and  children  almost  beggars.  But,  in  all  char- 
ity, let  us  remember  that  it  is  not  alone  the  poor  excise- 
man who  is  dead,  but  the  rare  poet,  who  has  intoned  a 
prayer  for  ten  thousand  lips,  — 

"  That  He,  who  stills  the  raven's  clamorous  ne.°t, 

And  decks  the  lily  fair  in  flowery  pride, 
Would,  in  the  way  His  wisdom  sees  the  best, 

For  them  and  for  their  little  ones  provide, 
But  chiefly  in  their  hearts  with  grace  divine  preside." 


BURNS  AND  BLOOMFIELD.  279 

Let  no  one  fancy  that  Burns  was  a  poor  farmer 
because  he  w^s  a  poet:  he  was  a  poor  farmer  simply 
because  he  gave  only  his  hand  to  the  business,  and 
none  of  his  brain.  He  had  enough  of  good  sense  and 
of  clear-sightedness  to  sweep  away  every  agricultural 
obstacle  in  his  path,  and  to  make  Ellisland  "  pay  well " ; 
but  good-fellowship,  and  the  "Jolly  Beggars,"  and  his 
excise-galloping  among  the  hills  by  Nithsdale  made  an 
end  of  the  fanner,  —  and,  in  due  tune,  made  an  end  of 
the  man. 

Robert  Bloomfield  was  another  poet-farmer  of  these 
times,  but  of  a  much  humbler  calibre.  I  could  never 
give  any  very  large  portion  of  a  wet  day  to  his  reading. 
There  is  truthfulness  of  description  in  him,  and  a 
certain  grace  of  rhythm,  but  nothing  to  kindle  any  glow. 
The  story  of  Giles,  and  of  the  milking,  and  of  the  spot- 
ted heifers,  may  be  true  enough  ;  but  every  day,  in  my 
barn-yard,  I  find  as  true  and  as  lively  a  story.  The 
fact  is,  that  the  details  of  farm-life  —  the  muddy  boots, 
the  sweaty  workers,  the  amber-colored  pools,  the  wal- 
lowing pigs  —  are  not  of  a  kind  to  warrant  or  to  call 
out  any  burning  imprint  of  verse.  Theme  for  this  lies 
in  the  breezes,  the  birds,  the  waving-wooded  mountains 
(Ni/pirov  eivoo-i^uAAof),  the  glorious  mornings 

"  Gilding  pale  streams  with  heavenly  alchemy,' ' 
—  and  for   these  the  poet  must  soar  above  the  barn- 
yard and  the  house-tops.    There  is  more  of  the  spirit 


280  WET  DAYS. 

of  true  poesy  in  that  little  fragment  of  Jean  Ingelow's, 

beginning,  — 

"  What  change  has  made  the  pastures  sweet, 
And  reached  the  daisies  at  my  feet, 
And  cloud  that  wears  a  golden  hem?  " 

than  in  all  the  verse  of  Bloomfield,  if  all  of  Bloomfield 
were  compressed  into  a  single  song.  And  yet,  if  we 
had  lived  in  those  days,  we  should  all  have  subscribed 
for  the  book  of  the  peasant-bard,  perhaps  have  read 
it,  —  but,  most  infallibly,  have  given  it  away  to  some 
country-cousin. 

Country  Story- Tellers. 

T  WILL  not  leave  the  close  of  the  last  century  with- 
r  out  paying  my  respects  to  good  Mrs.  Barbauld,  — 
not  so  much  for  her  pleasant  "  Ode  to  Spring,"  about 
which  there  is  a  sweet  odor  of  the  fields,  as  for  her  part- 
nership in  those  "  Evenings  at  Home  "  which  are  asso- 
ciated —  I  scarce  can  remember  how  —  with  roaring 
fires  and  winter  nights  in  the  country  ;  and  not  less 
strongly  with  the  first  noisy  chorus  of  the  frogs  in  the 
pools,  and  the  first  coy  uplift  of  the  crocuses  and  the 
sweet  violets.  There  are  pots  of  flowers,  and  glowing 
fruit-trees,  and  country  hill-sides  scattered  up  and  down 
those  little  stories,  which,  though  my  eye  has  not 
lighted  on  them  these  twenty  odd  years  past,  are  still 


COUNTRY  STORY-TELLERS.  281 

fresh  in  my  mind,  and  full  of  a  sweet  pastoral  fragrance. 
The  sketches  may  be  very  poor,  with  few  artist-like 
touches  in  them  ;  it  may  be  only  a  boyish  caprice  by  which 
I  cling  to  them ;  but  what  pleasanter  or  more  grateful 
whim  to  cherish  than  one  which  brings  back  all  the 
aroma  of  childhood  in  the  country,  —  floating  upon  the 
remnant-patches  of  a  story  that  is  only  half  recalled  ? 
The  cowslips  are  there  ;  the  pansies  are  there ;  the 
overhanging  chestnuts  are  there ;  the  dusty  high-road 
is  there  ;  the  toiling  wagons  are  there ;  and,  betimes, 
the  rain  is  dripping  from  the  cottage-eaves  —  as  the 
rain  is  dripping  to-day. 

And  from  Mrs.  Barbauld  I  am  led  away  to  speak  of 
Miss  Austen,  —  belonging,  it  is  true,  to  a  little  later  date, 
and  the  tender  memory  of  her  books  to  an  age  that  had 
outgrown  "  Evenings  at  Home."  Still,  the  association 
of  her  tales  is  strongest  with  the  country,  and  with 
country  -  firesides.  I  sometimes  take  up  one  of  her 
works  upon  an  odd  hour  even  now ;  and  how  like  find- 
ing old-garret  clothes  —  big  bonnets  and  scant  skirts  — • 
is  the  reading  of  such  old-time  story  !  How  the  "  pro- 
prieties "  our  grandmothers  taught  us  come  drifting  back 
upon  the  tide  of  those  buckram  conventionalities  of  the 
"  Dashwoods  " !  *  Ah,  Marianne,  how  we  once  loved 
you  !  All,  Sir  John,  how  we  once  thought  you  a  pro- 
fane swearer  !  —  as  you  really  were. 

*  Sense  and  Sensibility. 


282  WET  DAYS. 

There  are  people  we  know  between  the  covers  of 
Miss  Austen :  Mrs.  Jennings  has  a  splutter  of  tease, 
and  crude  incivility,  and  shapeless  tenderness,  that  you 
and  I  see  every  day ;  —  not  so  patent  and  demonstra- 
tive in  our  friend  Mrs.  Jones  ;  but  the  difference  is  only 
in  fashion :  Mrs.  Jennings  was  in  scant  petticoats,  and 
Mrs.  Jones  wears  hoops,  thirty  springs  strong. 

How  funny,  too,  the  old  love -talk!  "My  beloved 
Amanda,  the  charm  of  your  angelic  features  enraptures 
my  regard."  It  is  earnest ;  but  it 's  not  the  way  those 
things  are  done. 

And  what  visions  such  books  recall  of  the  days  when 
they  were  read,  —  the  girls  in  pinafores,  —  the  boys  in 
roundabouts,  —  the  elders  looking  languishingly  on, 
when  the  reader  comes  to  tender  passages !  And  was 
not  a  certain  Mary  Jane  another  Ellinor?  And  was 
not  Louisa  (who  lived  in  the  two -story  white  house 
on  the  corner)  another  Marianne,  —  gushing,  tender  ? 
Yes,  by  George,  she  was !  (that  was  the  form  our  boy: 
ish  oaths  took).  And  was  not  the  tall  fellow  who  of- 
fered his  arm  to  the  girls  so  gravely,  and  saw  them 
home  from  our  evening  visits  so  cavalierly,  —  was 
he  not  another  gay  deceiver,  —  a  Lothario,  a  Wil- 
loughby  ?  He  could  kiss  a  girl  on  the  least  provoca- 
tion ;  he  took  pay  out,  for  his  escort,  that  way.  It 
was  wonderful,  —  the  fellow's  effrontery.  It  never  for- 
sook him.  I  do  not  know  about  the  romance  in  his 


COUNTRY  'STORY-TELLERS.  283 

family ;  but  he  went  into  the  grocery  -  line,  and  has 
become  a  contractor  now,  enormously  rich.  He  offers 
his  arm  to  Columbia,  who  wishes  to  get  home  before 
dark ;  and  takes  pay  in  rifling  her  of  golden  kisses. 
Yes,  by  George,  he  does ! 


NINTH  DAY. 


British  Progress  in  Agriculture. 

A  S  I  sit  in  my  library-chair  listening  to  the  welcome 
•£^~  drip  from  the  eaves,  I  bethink  me  of  the  great 
host  of  English  farm-teachers  who  in  the  last  century 
wrote  and  wrought  so  well,  and  wonder  why  their  pre- 
cepts and  their  example  should  not  have  made  a  gar- 
den of  that  little  British  island.  To  say  nothing  of 
the  inherited  knowledge  of  such  men  as  Sir  Anthony 
Fitz  -  herbert,  Hugn  Platt,  Markham,  Lord  Bacon, 
Hartlib,  and  the  rest,  there  was  Tull,  who  had  blazed  a 
new  path  between  the  turnip  and  the  wheat-drills  — 
to  fortune ;  there  was  Lord  Kames,  who  illustrated  with 
rare  good  sense,  and  the  daintiness  of  a  man,  of  letters, 
all  the  economies  of  a  thrifty  husbandry ;  Sir  John  Sin- 
clair proved  the  wisdom  of  thorough  culture  upon 
tracts  that  almost  covered  counties ;  Bakewell  (of 
Dishley)  —  that  fine  old  farmer  in  breeches  and  top- 
boots,  who  received  Russian  princes  and  French  mar- 
quises at  his  kitchen-fireside  —  demonstrated  how  fat 


BRITISH  PROGRESS  IN  AGRICULTURE.    285 

might  be  laid  on  sheep  or  cattle  for  the  handling  of  a 
butcher ;  in  fact,  he  succeeded  so  far,  that  Dr.  Parkin- 
son once  told  Paley  that  the  great  breeder  had  "  the 
power  of  fattening  his  sheep  in  whatever  part  of  the 
body  he  chose,  directing  it  to  shoulder,  leg,  or  neck, 
as  he  thought  proper,  —  and  this,"  continued  Parkin- 
son, is  the  great,  problem  of  his  art." 
!  "  It  s  a  lie,  Sir,"  said  Paley,  —  "  and  that 's  the  solu- 
tion of  it." 

Besides  Bakewell,  there  was  Arthur  Young,  as  we 
have  seen,  giving  all  England  the  benefit  of  agricul- 
tural comparisons  by  his  admirable  "  Tours "  ;  Lord 
Dundonald  had  brought  his  chemical  knowledge  to  the 
aid  of  good  husbandry;  Abercrombie  and  Speechley 
and  Marshal  had  written  treatises  on  all  that  regarded 
good  gardening.  The  nurseries  of  Tottenham  Court 
Road,  the  parterres  of  Chelsea,  and  the  stoves  of  the 
Kew  Gardens  were  luxuriant  witnesses  of  what  the  en- 
terprising gardener  might  do. 

Agriculture,  too,  had  a  certain  dignity  given  to  it  by 
the  fact  that  "  Farmer  George  "  (the  King)  had  writ- 
ten his  experiences  for  a  journal  of  Arthur  Young,  the 
Duke  of  Bedford  was  one  of  the  foremost  advocates 
of  improved  farming,  and  Lord  Townshend  took  a  pride 
in  his  sobriquet  of  "  Turnip  Townshend." 

Yet,  for  all  this,  at  the  opening  of  the  present  century, 
England  was  by  no  means  a  garden.  Over  more  than 


28G  WET  DAYS. 

half  the  kingdom,  turnips,  where  sown  at  all,  were  sown 
broadcast.  In  four  counties  out  of  five,  a  bare  fallow 
was  deemed  essential  for  the  recuperation  of  cropped 
lands.  Barley  and  oats  were  more  often  grown  than 
wheat  Dibbling  or  drilling  of  grain,  notwithstanding 
Platt  and  Jethro  Tull,  were  still  rare.  The  wet  clay- 
lands  had,  for  the  most  part,  no  drainage,  save  the  open 
furrows  which  were  as  old  as  the  teachings  of  Xeno- 
phon  ;  indeed,  it  will  hardly  be 'credited,  when  I  state 
that  it  is  only  so  late  as  1843  that  a  certain  gardener, 
John  Keade  by  name,  at  the  Derby  Show  of  the  Royal 
Agricultural  Society,  exhibited  certain  cylindrical  pipes, 
which  he  had  formed  by  wrapping  damp  clay  around  a 
smooth  billet  of  wood,  and  with  which  he  "  had  been 
in  the  habit  of  draining  the  hot-beds  of  his  master." 
A  sagacious  engineer  who  was  present,  and  saw  these, 
examined  them  closely,  and,  calling  the  attention  of 
Earl  Spencer  (the  eminent  agriculturist)  to  them,  said, 
"  My  Lord,  with  these  I  can  drain  all  England." 

It  was  not  until  about  1830  that  the  subsoil-plough 
of  Mr.  Smith  of  Deanston  was  first  contrived  for 
special  work  upon  the  lands  of  Perthshire.  Notwith- 
standing all  the  brilliant  successes  of  Bakewell,  long- 
legged,  raw-boned  cattle  were  admired  by  the  majority 
of  British  farmers  at  the  opening  of  this  century,  and 
elephantine  monsters  of  this  description  were  dragged 
about  England  in  vans  for  exhibition.  It  was  only  in 


BRITISH  PROGRESS  IN  AGRICULTURE.    287 

1798  that  the  "  Smithfield  Club "  was  inaugurated  for 
the  show  of  fat  cattle,  by  the  Duke  of  Bedford,  Lord 
Somerville,  Arthur  Young,  and  others ;  and  it  was 
about  the  same  period  that  young  Jonas  Webb  used  to 
ride  upon  the  Norfolk  bucks  bred  by  his  grandfather, 
and,  with  a  quick  sense  of  discomfort  from  their  sharp 
backs,  vowed,  that,  when  he  "  grew  a  man,  he  'd  make 
better  saddles  for  them  "  ;  and  he  did,  —  as  every  one 
knows  who  has  ever  seen  a  good  type  of  the  Brabaham 
flock. 

The  Royal  Agricultural  Society  dates  from  1838. 
In  1835  Sir  Robert  Peel  presented  a  farmers'  club  at 
Tamworth  with  "  two  iron  ploughs  of  the  best  construc- 
tion," and  when  he  inquired  after  them  and  their  work 
the  following  year,  the  report  was  that  the  wooden 
mould-board  was  better :  "  We  tried  'em,  but  we  be  all 
of  one  mind,  that  the  iron  made  the  weeds  grow." 
And  I  can  recall  a  bright  morning  in  January  of  1845, 
when  I  made  two  bouts  around  a  field  in  the  middle  of 
the  best  dairy-district  of  Devonshire,  at  the  stilts  of  a 
plough  so  cumbrous  and  ineffective  that  a  thrifty  New- 
England  fanner  would  have  discarded  it  at  sight.  Nor 
can  I  omit,  in  this  connection,  to  revive,  so  far  as  I 
may,  the  image  of  a  small  Devon  farmer,  who  had  lived, 
and  I  dare  say  will  die,  utterly  ignorant  of  the  instruc- 
tions of  Tull,  or  of  the  agricultural  labors  of  Arthur 
Young :  a  short,  wheezy j  rotund  figure  of  a  man,  with 


288  WET   DAYS. 

ruddy  face,  —  fastening  the  hs  in  his  talk  most  blunder- 
ingly, —  driving  over  to  the  market-town  every  fair- 
day,  with  pretty  samples  of  wheat  or  barley  in  his  dog- 
cart,—  believing  in  the  royal  family  like  a  gospel, — 
limiting  his  reading  to  glances  at  the  "  Times "  in  the 
tap-room,  —  looking  with  an  evil  eye  upon  railways, 
(which,  in  that  day,  had  not  intruded  farther  than  Exe- 
ter into  his  shire,)  —  distrusting  terribly  the  spread 
of  "  eddication  "  :  it  "  doan't  help  the  work-folk  any  ; 
for,  d'  ye  see,  they  've  to  keep  a  mind  on  their  pleughing 
and  craps  ;  and  as  for  the  b'ys,  the  big  uns  must  mind 
the  beasts,  and  the  little  uns 's  got  enough  to  do  a-scar- 
ing  the  denied  rooks.  Gads !  what  hodds  to  them, 
please  your  Honor,  what  Darby  is  a-dooin'  up  in  Lun- 
nun,  or  what  Lewis-Philup  is  a-dooin'  with  the  French- 
el's  ?  "  And  the  ruddy  farmer-gentleman  stirs  his  toddy 
afresh,  lays  his  right  leg  caressingly  over  his  left  leg, 
admires  his  white-topped  boots,  and  is  the  picture  of 
British  complacency.  I  hope  he  is  living ;  I  hope  he 
stirs  his  toddy  still  in  the  tap-room  of  the  inn  by  the 
pretty  Erme  River ;  but  I  hope  that  he  has  grown  wiser 
as  he  has  grown  older,  and  that  he  has  given  over  his 
wheezy  curses  at  the  engine  as  it  hurtles  past  on  the 
iron  way  to  Plymouth  and  to  Penzance. 

Thus  we  find  that  the  work  was  not  all  done  for  the 
agriculture  and  the  agriculturist  of  England  in  the  last 
century ;  it  is  hardly  all  done  yet ;  it  is  doubtful  if  it 


OPENING  OF  THE  CENTURY.  289 

will  be  done  so  as  to  close  investigation  and  ripen 
method  in  our  time.  There  was  room  for  a  corps  of 
fresh  workers  at  the  opening  of  the  present  century ; 
nor  was  such  a  corps  lacking. 


Opening  of  the  Century. 

A  BOUT  the  year  1808,  John  Christian  Curwen, 
-^-*-  Member  of  Parliament,  and  dating  from  Cum- 
berland, wrote  "  Hints  on  Agricultural  Subjects,"  a  big 
octavo  volume,  in  which  he  suggests  the  steaming  of 
potatoes  for  horses,  as  a  substitute  for  hay  ;  but  it  does 
not  appear  that  the  suggestion  was  well  received.  To 
his  credit,  however,  it  may  be  said,  that,  in  the  same 
book,  he  urged  the  system  of  "  soiling  "  cattle,  —  a  sys- 
tem which  even  now  needs  its,  earnest  expounders,  and 
which  would  give  full  warrant  for  their  loudest  exhor- 
tation. 

I  notice,  too,  that,  at  about  the  same  period,  Dr.  Bed- 
does,  the  friend  and  early  patron  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy 
at  the  Pneumatic  Institution  of  Bristol,  wrote  a  book 
with  the  quaint  title,  "  Good  Advice  to  Husbandmen 
in  Harvest,  and  for  all  those  who  labor  in  Hot  Berths, 
and  for  others  who  will  take  it  —  in  "Warm  Weather." 
And  with  the  recollection  of  Davy's  description  of  the 
Doctor  in  my  mind,  —  "  uncommonly  short  and  fat,"  * 

*  Life  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy,  London.  1839,  p.  46.' 
19 


290  WET  DAYS. 

—  I  have  felt  a  great  interest  in  seeing  what  such  a 
man   should  have  to  say  upon  harvest-heats ;  but  his 
book,  so  far  as  I  know,  is  not  to  be  found  in  America. 

John  Harding,  of  St.  James  Street,  London,  published, 
in  1809,  a  tract  upon  "  The  Use  of  Sugar  in  Feeding 
Cattle,"  in  which  were  set  forth  sundry  experiments 
which  went  to  show  how  bullocks  had  been  fattened  on 
molasses,  and  had  been  rewarded  with  a  premium.  I 
am  indebted  for  all  knowledge  of  this  anomalous  trac- 
tate to  the  "  Agricultural  Biography  "  of  Mr.  Donaldson, 
who  seems  disposed  to  give  a  sheltering  wing  to  the 
curious  theory  broached,  and  discourses  upon  it  with 
a  lucidity  and  coherence  worthy  of  a  state-paper.  I 
must  be  permitted  to  quote  Mr.  Donaldson's  language  : 

—  "  The  author's  ideas  are  no  romance  or  chimera,  but 
a  very  feasible  entertainment  of  the  undertaking,  when 
a  social  revolution  permits  the  fruits  of  all  climes  to  be 
used  in  freedom  of  the  burden  of  value  that  is  imposed 
by  monopoly,  and  restricts  the  legitimate  appropriation." 

George  Adams,  in  1810,  proposed  "A  New  System 
of  Agriculture  and  Feeding  Stock,"  of  which  the  nov- 
elty lay  in  movable  sheds,  (upon  iron  tram-ways,)  for 
the  purpose  of  soiling  cattle.  The  method  was  cer- 
tainly original ;  nor  can  it  be  regarded  as  wholly  vis- 
ionary in  our  time,  when  the  iron  conduits  of  Mr. 
Mechi,  under  the  steam-thrust  of  the  Tip-Tree  en- 
gines, are  showing  a  percentage  of  profit. 


SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY.  291 

Charles  Drury,  in  the  same  year,  recommended,  in 
an  elaborate  treatise,  the  steaming  of  straw,  roots,  and 
hay,  for  cattle-food,  —  a  recommendation  which,  in  our 
time,  has  been  put  into  most  successful  practice.* 

Mowbray,  who  was  for  a  long  time  the  great  author- 
ity upon  Domestic  Fowls  and  their  Treatment,  pub- 
lished his  book  in  1803,  which  he  represents  as  having 
been  compiled  from  the  memoranda  of  forty  years' 
experience. 

Sir  Humphry  Davy. 

"VTEXT,  as  illustrative  of  the  rural  literature  of  the 
-*r*  early  part  of  this  century,  I  must  introduce  the  au- 
gust name  of  Sir  Humphry  Davy.  This  I  am  warranted 
in  doing  on  two  several  counts :  first,  because  he  was  an 
accomplished  fisherman  and  the  author  of  "  Salmonia," 
and  next,  because  he  was  the  first  scientific  man  of 
any  repute  who  was  formally  invited  by  a  Board  of 
Agriculture  to  discuss  the  relations  of  Chemistry  to  the 
practice  of  farming. 

Unfortunately,  he  was  himself  ignorant  of  practical 
agriculture,!  when  called  upon  to  illustrate  its  relations 

*  The  success  of  the  method  has  been  most  abundantly  proved,  so 
far  as  relates  to  the  feeding  of  milch-cows;  for  beef- or  store -cattle 
steamed  food  is  of  more  doubtful  policy,  while  for  horses  the  best 
breeders  condemn  it  without  reserve. 

t  See  letter  of  Thomas  Poole,  p.  322,  Fragmentary  Remains  of  Sir 
Humphry  Davy. 


292  WET  DAYS. 

to  chemistry ;  but,  like  an  earnest  man,  he  set  about 
informing  himself  by  communication  with  the  best  farm- 
ers of  the  kingdom.  He  delivered  a  very  admirable 
series  of  lectures,  and  it  was  without  doubt  most  agree- 
able to  the  country-gentlemen  to  find  the  great  waste 
from  their  fermenting  manures  made  clear  by  Sir 
Humphry's  retorts ;  but  Davy  was  too  profound  and 
too  honest  a  man  to  lay  down  for  farmers  any  chemi- 
cal high-road  to  success.  He  directed  and  stimulated 
inquiry ;  he  developed  many  of  the  principles  which 
underlay  their  best  practice  ;  but  he  offered  them  no 
safety-lamp.  I  think  he  brought  more  zeal  to  his  in- 
vestigations in  the  domain  of  pure  science ;  he  loved 
well-defined  and  brilliant  results ;  and  I  do  not  think 
that  he  pushed  his  inquiries  in  regard  to  the  way  in 
which  the  forage-plants  availed  themselves  of  sulphate 
of  lime  with  one-half  the  earnestness  or  delight  with 
which  he  conducted  his  discovery  of  the  integral  char- 
acter of  chlorine,  or  with  which  he  saw  for  the  first 
time  the  metallic  globules  bubbling  out  from  the  elec- 
trified crust  of  potash. 

Yet  he  loved  the  country  with  a  rare  and  thorough 
love,  as  his  descriptions  throughout  his  letters  prove ; 
and  he  delighted  in  straying  away,  in  the  leafy  month 
of  June,  to  the  charming  place  of  his  friend  Knight, 
upon  the  Teme  in  Herefordshire.  His  "  Salmonia  "  is, 
in  its  way,  a  pastoral ;  not,  certainly,  to  be  compared 


SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY.  293 

with  the  original  of  "Walton,  lacking  its  simple  homeli- 
ness, for  which  its  superior  scientific  accuracy  can  make 
but  poor  amends.  I  cannot  altogether  forget,  in  read- 
ing it,  that  its  author  is  a  fine  gentleman  from  London. 
Neither  fish,  nor  alders,  nor  eddies,  nor  purling  shal- 
lows, can  drive  out  of  memory  the  fact  that  Sir  Hum- 
phry must  be  back  at  "  The  Hall "  by  half-past  six,  in 
season  to  dress  for  dinner.  Walton,  in  slouch-hat, 
bound  about  with  "  leaders,"  sat  upon  the  green  turf 
to  listen  to  a  milkmaid's  song.  Sir  Humphry  (I  think 
he  must  have  carried  a  camp-stool)  recited  some  verses 
written  by  "  a  noble  lady  long  distinguished  at  court."  * 

In  fact,  there  was  always  a  great  deal  of  the  fine  gen- 
tleman about  the  great  chemist,  —  almost  too  fine  for 
the  quiet  tenor  of  a  working-life.  Those  first  brilliant 
successes  of  his  professional  career  at  the  Royal  Insti- 
tution of  London,  before  he  was  turned  of  thirty,  and  in 
which  his  youth,  his  splendid  elocution,  his  happy  dis- 
coveries, his  attractive  manner,  all  made  him  the  mark 
for  distinguished  attentions,  went  very  far,  I  fancy,  to 
carry  him  to  that  stage  of  social  intoxication  under 
which  he  was  deluded  into  marrying  a  wealthy  lady  of 
fashion,  and  a  confirmed  blue-stocking,  —  the  brilliant 
Mrs.  Apreece. 

Little  domestic  comfort  ever  came  of  the  marriage. 
Yet  he  was  a  chivalrous  man,  and  took  the  issue  calmly. 
*  Salmonia,  p.  5,  London,  Murray,  1851. 


294  WET  DAYS. 

It  is  always  in  his  letters,  —  "  My  dear  Jane,"  and  "  God 
bless  you!  Yours  affectionately."  But  these  expres- 
sions bound  the  tender  passages.  It  was  altogether  a 
gentlemanly  and  a  lady-like  affair.  Only  once,  as  I  can 
find,  he  forgets  himself  in  an  honest  repining ;  it  is  in 
a  letter  to  his  brother,  under  date  of  October  30, 
1823  : *  —  "To  add  to  my  annoyances,  I  find  my  house, 
as  usual,  after  the  arrangements  made  by  the  mistress  of 
it,  without  female  servants ;  but  in  this  world  we  have 
to  suffer  and  bear,  and  from  Socrates  down  to  humble 
mortals,  domestic  discomfort  seems  a  sort  of  philosoph- 
ical fate." 

If  only  Lady  Davy  could  have  seen  this  Xantippe 
touch,  I  think  Sir  Humphry  would  have  taken  to 
angling  in  some  quiet  country-place  for  a  month  there- 
after ! 

And  even  when  affairs  grow  serious  with  the  Baro- 
net, and  when,  stricken  by  the  palsy,  he  is  loitering 
among  the  mountains  of  Styria,  he  writes,  —  "I  am 
glad  to  hear  of  your  perfect  restoration,  and  with  health 
and  the  society  of  London,  which  you  are  so  Jilted  to 
ornament  and  enjoy,  your '  viva  lafelicita  '  is  much  more 
secure  than  any  hope  belonging  to  me." 

And  again,  "  You  once  talked  of  passing  this  winter  in 
Italy ;  but  I  hope  your  plans  will  be  entirely  guided  by 
the  state  of  your  health  and  feelings.  Your  society 

*  Fragmentary  Remains,  p.  242.  . 


SIR  HUMPHRY  DAVY.  295 

would  undoubtedly  be  a  very  great  resource  to  me, 
but  I  am  so  well  aware  of  my  own  present  unfitness  for 
society  that  I  would  not  have  you  risk  the  chance  of  an 
uncomfortable  moment  on  my  account." 

The  dear  Lady  Jane  must  have  had  a  penchant  for 
society  to  leave  a  poor  palsied  man  to  tumble  into  his 
tomb  alone. 

Yet  once  again,  in  the  last  letter  he  ever  writes,  dated 
Rome,  March,  1829,  he  gallantly  asks  her  to  join  him  ; 
it  begins,  —  "I  am  still  alive,  though  expecting  every 
hour  to  be  released." 

And  the  Lady  Jane,  who  is  washing  off  her  fashiona- 
ble humors  in  the  fashionable  waters  of  Bath,  writes,  — 
"  I  have  received,  my  beloved  Sir  Humphry,  the  letter 
signed  by  your  hand,  with  its  precious  wish  of  tender- 
ness. I  start  to-morrow,  having  been  detained  here  by 

Doctors  Babington  and  Clarke  till  to-day I 

cannot  add  more  "  (it  is  a  letter  of  half  a  page)  "  than 
that  your  fame  is  a  deposit,  and  your  memory  a  glory, 
your  life  still  a  hope." 

Sweet  Lady  Jane  !  Yet  they  say  she  mourned  him 
duly,  and  set  a  proper  headstone  at  his  grave.  But,  for 
my  own  part,  I  have  no  faith  in  that  affection  which  will 
splinter  a  loving  heart  every  day  of  its  life,  and  yet, 
when  it  has  ceased  to  beat,  will  make  atonement  with 
an  idle  swash  of  tears. 


296  WET  DAYS. 


Birkbeck,  Beatson,  and  Finlayson. 


nnHERE  was  a  British  farmer  by  the  name  of  Mor 
-  ris  Birkbeck,  who  about  the  year  1814  wrote  an 
account  of  an  agricultural  tour  in  France;  and  who 
subsequently  established  himself  somewhere  upon  our 
Western  prairies,  of  which  he  gave  account  in  "  Letters 
from  Illinois,"  and  in  "  Notes  on  a  Journey  in  America, 
from  the  Coast  of  Virginia  to  the  Territory  of  Illinois," 
with  maps,  etc.  Cobbett  once  or  twice  names  him  as 
"  poor  Birkbeck,"  —  but  whether  in  allusion  to  his  hav- 
ing been  drowned  in  one  of  our  Western  rivers,  or  to 
the  poverty  of  his  agricultural  successes,  it  is  hard  to 
determine. 

In  1820  Major-General  Beatson,  who  had  been  Aid 
to  the  Marquis  of  Wellesley  in  India,  published  an  ac- 
count of  a  new  system  of  farming,  which  he  claimed  to 
have  in  successful  operation  at  his  place  in  the  County 
of  Sussex.  The  novelty  of  the  system  lay  in  the  fact 
that  he  abandoned  both  manures  and  the  plough,  and 
scarified  the  surface  to  the  depth  of  two  or  three  inches, 
after  which  he  burned  it  over.  The  Major-General  was 
called  to  the  governorship  of  St.  Helena  before  his  sys- 
tem had  made  much  progress.  I  am  led  to  allude  to 
the  plan  as  one  of  the  premonitory  hints  of  that  rotary 
method  which  is  just  now  enlisting  a  large  degree  of 
attention  in  the  agricultural  world,  and  which  promises 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  297 

to  supplant  the  plough  on  all  wide  stretches  of  land, 
within  the  present  century. 

Finlayson,  a  brawny  Scot,  born  in  the  parish  of 
Mauchline,  who  was  known  from  "  Glentuck  to  the 
Rutton-Ley  "  as  the  best  man  for  "  putting  the  stone," 
or  for  a  "  hop,  step,  and  leap,"  contrived  the  self-cleaning 
ploughs  (with  circular  beam)  and  harrows  which  bore 
his  name.  He  was  also  —  besides  being  the  athlete  of 
Ayrshire  —  the  author  of  sundry  creditable  and  practi- 
cal works  on  agriculture. 

William   Cobbett. 

BUT  the  most  notable  man  in  connection  with  rural 
literature,  of  this  day,  was,  by  all  odds,  William 
Cobbett.     His  early  history  has  so   large  a  flavor   of 
romance  in  it  that  I  am  sure  my  readers  will  excuse  me 
for  detailing  it. 

His  grandfather  was  a  day-laborer;  he  died  before 
Cobbett  was  born  ;  but  the  author  says  that  he  used  to 
visit  the  grandmother  at  Christmas  and  Whitsuntide. 
Her  home  was  "  a  little  thatched  cottage,  with  a  garden 
before  the  door.  She  used  to  give  us  milk  and  bread 
for  breakfast,  an  apple-pudding  for  dinner,  and  a  piece 
of  bread  and  cheese  for  our  supper.  Her  fire  was  made 
of  turf  cut  from  the  neighboring  heath  ;  and  her  evening 
light  was  a  rush  dipped  in  grease."  His  father  was  a 


298  WET  DAYS. 

small  farmer,  and  one  who  did  not  allow  his  boys  to 
grow  up  in  idleness.  "  My  first  occupation,"  he  tells  us, 
"  was  driving  the  small  birds  from  the  turnip-seed,  and 
the  rook  from  the  pease ;  when  I  first  trudged  a-field, 
with  my  wooden  bottle  and  my  satchel  swung  over  my 
shoulders,  I  was  hardly  able  to  climb  the  gates  and 
stiles  ;  and  at  the  close  of  the  day,  to  reach  home  was  a 
task  of  infinite  difficulty."  * 

At  the  age  of  eleven  he  speaks  of  himself  as  occupied 
in  clipping  box-edgings  and  weeding  flower-beds  in  the 
garden  of  the  Bishop  of  Winchester ;  and  while  here 
he  encounters,  one  day,  a  workman  who  has  just  come 
from  the  famous  Kew  Gardens  of  the  King.  Young 
Cobbett  is  fired  by  the  glowing  description,  and  resolves 
that  he  must  see  them,  and  work  upon  them  too.  So  he 
sets  off,  one  summer's  morning,  with  only  the  clothes  he 
has  upon  his  back,  and  with  thirteen  halfpence  in  his 
pocket,  for  Richmond.  And  as  he  trudges  through  the 
streets  of  the  town,  after  a  hard  day's  walk,  in  his  blue 
smock-frock,  and  with  his  red  garters  tied  under  his 
knee.-,  staring  about  him,  he  sees 'in  the  window  of  a 
bookseller's  shop  the  "  Tale  of  a  Tub,"  price  threepence  ; 
it  piques  his  curiosity,  and,  though  his  money  is  nearly 
all  spent,  he  closes  a  bargain  for  the  book,  and  throwing 
himself  down  upon  the  shady  side  of  a  hay-rick,  makes 
his  first  acquaintance  with  Dean  Swift.  He  reads  til] 

*  Life  and  Adventures  of  Peter  Porcupine. 


WILLIAM   COBBETT.  299 

it  is  dark,  without  thought  of  supper  or  of  bed,  —  then 
tumbles  down  upon  the  grass  under  the  shadow  of  the 
stack,  and  sleeps  till  the  birds  of  the  Kew  Gardens 
wake  him.  * 

He  finds  work,  as  he  had  determined  to  do ;  but  it 
was  not  fated  that  he  should  pass  his  life  amid  the 
pleasant  parterres  of  Kew.  At  sixteen,  or  thereabout, 
on  a  visit  to  a  relative,  he  catches  his  first  sight  of  the 
Channel  waters,  and  of  the  royal  fleet  riding  at  anchor 
at  Spithead.  And  at  that  sight,  the  "  old  Armada,'' 
and  the  "  brave  Kodney,"  and  the  "  wooden  walls,"  of 
which  he  had  read,  come  drifting  like  a  poem  into  his 
thought,  and  he  vows  that  he  will  become  a  sailor,  — 
maybe,  in  time,  the  Admiral  Cobbett.  But  here,  too, 
the  fates  are  against  him :  a  kind  captain  to  whom 
he  makes  application  suspects  him  for  a  runaway,  and 
advises  him  to  find  his  way  home. 

He  returns  once  more  to  the  plough ;  "  but "  he  says, 
"  I  was  now  spoiled  for  a  farmer."  He  sighs  for  the 
world ;  the  little  horizon  of  Farnham  (his  native  town) 
is  too  narrow  for  him  ;  and  the  very  next  year  he  makes 
his  final  escapade. 

"  It  was  on  the  6th  of  May,  1783,  that  I,  like  Don  Quix- 
ote, sallied  forth  to  seek  adventures.  I  was  dressed  in 
my  holiday  clothes,  in  order  to  accompany  two  or  three 
lasses  to  Guildford  fair.  They  were  to  assemble  at  a 
house  about  three  miles  from  my  home,  where  I  was  to 


800  WET  DAYS. 

attend  them  ;  but,  unfortunately  for  me,  I  had  to  cross 
the  London  turnpike-road.  The  stage-coach  had  just 
turned  the  summit  of  a  hill,  and  was  rattling  down 
towards  me  at  a  merry  rate.  The  notion  of  going  to 
London  never  entered  my  mind  till  this  very  moment ; 
yet  the  step  was  completely  determined  on  before  the 
coach  had  reached  the  spot  where  I  stood.  Up  I  got, 
and  was  in  London  about  nine  o'clock  in  the  evening." 

His  immediate  adventure  in  the  metropolis  proves  to 
be  his  instalment  as  scrivener  in  an  attorney's  office. 
No  wonder  he  chafes  at  this ;  no  wonder,  that,  in  his 
wanderings  about  town,  he  is  charmed  by  an  advertise- 
ment which  invited  all  loyal  and  public-spirited  young 
men  to  repair  to  a  certain  "  rendezvous " ;  he  goes  to 
the  rendezvous,  and  presently  finds  himself  a  recruit  in 
one  of  His  Majesty's  regiments  which  is  filling  up  for 
service  in  British  America. 

He  must  have  been  an  apt  soldier,  so  far  as  drill 
went ;  for  I  find  that  he  rose  rapidly  to  the  grade  of 
corporal,  and  thence  to  the  position  of  sergeant-major. 
He  tells  us  that  his  early  habits,  his  strict  attention 
to  duty,  and  his  native  talent  were  the  occasion  of  his 
swift  promotion.  In  New  Brunswick,  upon  a  certain 
winter's  morning,  he  falls  in  with  the  rosy-faced  daughter 
of  a  sergeant  of  artillery,  who  was  scrubbing  her  pans 
at  sunrise,  upon  the  snow.  "  I  made  up  my  mind,"  he 
says,  "  that  she  was  the  very  girl  for  me This 


WILLIAM   COBBETT.  301 

matter  was  at  once  settled  as  firmly  as  if  written  in  the 
book  of  fate." 

To  this  end  he  determines  to  leave  the  army  as  soon 
as  possible.  But  before  he  can  effect  this,  the  artillery- 
man is  ordered  back  to  England,  and  his  pretty  daugh- 
ter goes  with  him.  But  Cobbett  has  closed  the  com- 
pact with  her,  and  placed  in  her  hands  a  hundred  and 
fifty  pounds  of  his  earnings,  —  a  free  gift,  and  an  ear- 
nest of  his  troth. 

The  very  next  season,  however,  he  meets,  in  a  sweet 
rural  solitude  of  the  Province,  another  charmer,  with 
whom  he  dallies  in  a  lovelorn  way  for  two  years  or 
more.  He  cannot  quite  forget  the  old ;  he  cannot  cease 
befondling  the  new.  If  only  the  "  remotest  rumor  had 
come,"  says  he,  u  of  the  faithlessness  of  the  brunette  in 
England,  I  should  have  been  fastened  for  life  in  the 
New-Brunswick  valley."  But  no  such  rumor  comes; 
and  in  due  time  he  bids  a  heart-rending  adieu,  and 
recrosses  the  ocean  to  find  his  first  love  maid-of-all-work 
in  a  gentleman's  family  at  five  pounds  a  year  ;  and  she 
puts  in,  his  hand,  upon  their  first  interview,  the  whole  of 
the  hundred  and  fifty  pounds,  untouched.  This  rekin- 
dles his  admiration  and  respect  for  her  judgment,  and 
she  becomes  his  wife,  —  a  wife  he  never  ceases  there- 
after to  love  and  honor. 

He  goes  to  France,  and  thence  to  America.  Es- 
tablishing himself  in  Philadelphia,  he  enters  upon  the 


302  WET  DAYS. 

career  of  authorship,  with  a  zeal  for  the  King,  and  a 
hatred  of  Dr.  Franklin  and  all  Democrats,  which  give 
him  a  world  of  trouble.  His  foul  bitterness  of  speech 
finds  its  climax  at  length  in  a  brutal  onslaught  upon 
Dr.  Rush,  for  which  he  is  prosecuted,  convicted,  and 
mulcted  in  a  sum  that  breaks  down  his  bookselling  and 
interrupts  the  profits  of  his  authorship. 

He  retires  to  England,  opens  shop  in  Pali-Mall,  and 
edits  the  "  Porcupine,"  which  bristles  with  envenomed 
arrows  discharged  against  all  Liberals  and  Democrats. 
Again  he  is  prosecuted,  convicted,  imprisoned.  His 
boys,  well  taught  in  all  manner  of  farm-work,  send  him, 
from  his  home  in  the  country,  hampers  of  fresh  fruits,  to 
relieve  the  tedium  of  Newgate.  Discharged  at  length, 
and  continuing  his  ribaldry  in  the  columns  of  the  "  Reg- 
ister," he  flies  before  an  Act  of  Parliament,  and  takes 
new  refuge  in  America.  He  is  now  upon  Long  Island, 
earnest  as  in  his  youth  in  agricultural  pursuits.  His 
political  opinions  had  undergone  modification  ;  there 
was  not  so  much  declamation  against  democracy,  —  not 
so  much  angry  zeal  for  royalty  and  the  state-church. 
Nay,  he  committed  the  stupendous  absurdity  of  carry- 
ing back  with  him  to  England  the  bones  of  Tom  Paine, 
as  the  grandest  gift  he  could  bestow  upon  his  mother- 
land. No  great  ovations  greeted  this  strange  luggage 
of  his ;  I  think  he  was  ashamed  of  it  afterwards,  —  if 
Cobbett  was  ever  ashamed  of  anything.  He  became 


WILLIAM  COBBETT.  303 

candidate  for  Parliament  in  the  Liberal  interest ;  he  un- 
dertook those  famous  "  Rural  Rides  "  which  are  a  rare 
jumble  of  sweet  rural  scenes  and  crazy  political  objur- 
gation. Now  he  hammers  the  "parsons,"  —  now  he 
tears  the  paper-money  to  rags,  —  and  anon  he  is  bitter 
upon  Malthus,  Ricardo,  and  the  Scotch  "  Feelosofers," 
—  and  closes  his  anathema  with  the  charming  picture  of 
a  wooded  "  hanger,"  up  which  he  toils  (with  curses  on 
the  road)  only  to  rejoice  in  the  view  of  a  sweet  Hamp- 
shire valley,  over  which  sleek  flocks  are  feeding,  and 
down  which  some  white  stream  goes  winding,  and  cheat- 
ing him  into  a  rare  memory  of  his  innocent  boyhood. 
He  gains  at  length  his  election  to  Parliament ;  but  he 
is  not  a  man  to  figure  well  there,  with  his  impetuosity 
and  lack  of  self-control.  He  can  talk  by  the  hour  to 
those  who  feel  with  him ;  but  to  be  challenged,  to  have 
his  fierce  invective  submitted  to  the  severe  test  of  an 
inexorable  logic,  —  this  limits  his  audacity  ;  and  his  au- 
dacity once  limited,  his  power  is  gone. 

His  energy,  his  promptitude,  his  habits  of  thrift,  would 
have  made  him  one  of  the  best  of  farmers.  His  book 
on  gardening  is  even  now  one  of  the  most  instructive 
that  can  be  placed  in  the  hands  of  a  beginner.  He 
ignores  physiology  and  botany,  indeed;  he  makes 
crude  errors  on  this  score;  but  he  had  an  intuitive 
sense  of  the  right  method  of  teaching.  He  is  plain  and 
clear,  to  a  comma.  He  knows  what  needs  to  be  told ; 


304  WET  DAYS. 

and  he  tells  it  straightforwardly.  There  is  no  better 
model  for  agricultural  writers  than  "  Cobbett  on  Gar- 
dening." 

His  "  Cottage  Economy,"  too,  is  a  book  which  every 
small  landholder  in  America  should  own  :  there  -  is  A 
sterling  merit  in  it  which  will  not  be  outlived.  He 
made  a  great  mistake,  it  is  true,  in  insisting  that  Indian- 
corn  could  be  grown  successfully  in  England.  But  be- 
ing a  man  who  did  not  yield  to  influences  of  climate 
himself,  he  did  not  mean  that  his  crops  should ;  and  if 
he  had  been  rich  enough,  I  believe  that  he  would  have 
covered  his  farm  with  a  glass  roof,  rather  than  yield  his 
conclusion  that  Indian-corn  could  be  grown  successfully 
under  a  British  sky. 

A  great,  impracticable,  earnest,  headstrong  man,  the 
like  of  whom  does  not  appear  a  half-dozen  times  in  a 
century.  Being  self-educated,  he  was  possessed,  like 
nearly  all  self-educated  men,  of  a  complacency  and  a 
self-sufficiency  which  stood  always  in  his  way.  Affect- 
ing to  teach  grammar,  he  was  ignorant  of  all  the  ety 
mology  of  the  language  ;  knowing  no  word  of  botany,, 
he  classified  plants  by  the  "  fearipgs  "  of  his  turnip-field. 
He  was  vain  to  the  last  degree ;  he  thought  his  books 
were  the  best  books  in  the  world,  and  that  everybody 
should  read  them.*  He  was  industrious,  restless,  cap- 

*  On  the  fly-leaf  to  his  Woodlands  lie  wrote,  —  "  When  I  am  asked 
what  books  a  young  man  or  young  woman  should  read,  I  always  an- 
swer, '  Let  him  or  her  read  all  the  books  that  I  have  written.' '' 


GRAHAME  AND   CRABBE.  305 

tious,  and,  although  humane  at  heart,  was  the  most  ma- 
lignant slanderer  of  his  time.  He  called  a  political 
antagonist  a  "  pimp,"  and  thought  a  crushing  argument 
lay  in  the  word ;  he  called  parsons  scoundrels,  and  bade 
his  boys  be  regular  at  church. 

In  June,  1835,  while  the  Parliament  was  in  session, 
he  grew  ill,  —  talked  feebly  about  politics  and  farming, 
(to  his  household,)  "  wished  for  '  four  days'  rain '  for 
the  Cobbett  corn,"  and  on  "Wednesday,  (1 6th  June,)  de- 
sired to  be  carried  around  the  farm,  and  criticised  the 
work  that  had  been  done, — grew  feeble  as  evening 
drew  on,  and  an  hour  after  midnight  leaned  back  heav- 
ily in  his  chair,  and  died. 


Grahame  and  Crabbe. 

T  MUST  give  a  paragraph,  at  least,  to  the  Rev.  James 
-*-  Grahame,  the  good  Scotch  parson,  were  it  only 
because  he  wrote  a  poem  called  "  British  Georgics." 
They  are  not  so  good  as  Virgil's  ;  nor  did  he  ever  think 
it  himself.  In  fact,  he  published  his  best  poem  anony- 
mously, and  so  furtively  that  even  his  wife  took  up  an 
early  copy,  which  she  found  one  day  upon  her  table,  and, 
charmed  with  its  pleasant  description  of  Scottish  braes 
and  burn-sides,  said,  "Ah!  Jemmy,  if  ye  could  only 
mak'  a  book  like  this  !  "  And  I  will  venture  to  say  that 
"  Jemmy  "  never  had  rarer  or  pleasanter.  praise. 
20 


306  WET  DAYS. 

I  suspect  good  Mistress  Grahame  was  not  a  very 
strong-minded  woman. 

Crabbe,  who  was  as  keen  an  observer  of  rural  scenes 
as  the  Scotchman,  had  a  much  better  faculty  of  verse  ; 
indeed,  he  had  a  faculty  of  language  so  large  that  it 
carried  him  beyond  the  real  drift  of  his  stories.  I  do 
not  know  the  fact,  indeed ;  but  I  think,  that,  notwith- 
standing the  Duke  of  Rutland's  patronage,  Mr.  Crabbe 
must  have  written  inordinately  long  sermons.  It  is 
strange  how  many  good  men  do, — losing  point  and 
force  and  efficiency  in  a  welter  of  words !  If  there  is 
one  rhetorical  lesson  which  it  behooves  all  theologic  or 
academic  professors  to  lay  down  and  enforce,  (if  need 
be  with  the  ferule,)  it  is  this,  —  Be  short 

George  Crabbe  wrote  charming  rural  tales ;  but  he 
wrote  long  ones.  There  is  minute  observation,  dra- 
matic force,  tender  pathos,  but  there  is  much  of  tedious 
and  coarse  description.  If  by  some  .subtile  alchemy 
the  better  qualities  could  be  thrown  down  from  the  tur- 
bid and  watery  flux  of  his  verse,  we  should  have  an 
admirable  pocket-volume  for  the  country ;  as  it  is,  his 
books  rest  mostly  on  the  shelves,  and  it  requires  a 
strong  breath  to  puff  away  the  dust  that  has  gathered 
on  the  topmost  edges. 

I  think  of  the  Reverend  Mr.  Crabbe  as  an  amiable, 
absent-minded  old  gentleman,  driving  about  on  week- 
days  in  a  heavy,  square-topped  gig,  (his  wife  holding 


CHARLES  LAMB.  307 

the  reins,)  in  search  of  way-side  gypsies,  and  on  Sun- 
day pushing  a  discourse  —  which  was  good  up  to  the 
"fourthly"  —  into  the  "  seventhly." 

Charles  Lamb. 

CHARLES  LAMB,  if  he  had  been  clerically  dis- 
^-'  posed,  would,  I  am  sure,  have  written  short  ser- 
mons ;  and  I  think  that  his  hearers  would  have  carried 
away  the  gist  of  them  clean  and  clear. 

He  never  wrote  anything  that  could  be  called  strictly 
pastoral ;  he  was  a  creature  of  streets  and  crowding 
houses ;  no  man  could  have  been  more  ignorant  of  the 
every-day  offices  of  rural  life  ;  I  doubt  if  he  ever  knew 
from  which  side  a  horse  was  to  be  mounted  or  a  cow  to 
be  milked,  and  a  sprouting  bean  was  a  source  of  the 
greatest  wonderment  to  him.  Yet,  in  spite  of  all  this, 
what  a  book  those  Essays  of  his  make,  to  lie  down  with 
under  trees !  It  is  the  honest,  lovable  simplicity  of  his 
nature  that  makes  the  keeping  good.  He  is  the  Izaak 
Walton  of  London  streets,  —  of  print-shops,  of  pastry- 
shops,  of  mouldy  book-stalls;  the  chime  of  Bow-bells 
strikes  upon  his  ear  like  the  chorus  of  a  milkmaid's 
song  at  "Ware. 

There  is  not  a  bit  of  rodomontade  in  him  about  the 
charms  of  the  country,  from  beginning  to  end  ;  if  there 
were,  we  should  despise  him.  He  can  find  nothing  to 


308  WET  DAYS. 

say  of  Skiddaw  but  that  he  is  "  a  great  creature  "  ;  and 
he  writes  to  Wordsworth,  (whose  sight  is  failing,)  on 
Ambleside,  "  I  return  you  condolence  for  your  decaying 
sight,  —  not  for  anything  there  is  to  see  in  the  country, 
but  for  the  miss  of  the  pleasure  of  reading  a  London 
newspaper." 

And  again  to  his  friend  Manning,  (about  the  date  of 
1800,)  —  "I  am  not  romance-bit  about  Nature.  The 
earth  and  sea  and  sky  (when  all  is  said)  is  but  as  a 
house  to  dwell  in.  If  the  inmates  be  courteous,  and 
good  liquors  flow  like  the  conduits  at  an  old  coronation, 
—  if  they  can  talk  sensibly,  and  feel  properly,  I  have 
no  need  to  stand  staring  upon  the  gilded  looking-glass, 
(that  strained  my  friend's  purse-strings  in  the  purchase.) 
nor  his  five-shilling  print,  over  the  mantel-piece,  of  old 
Nabbs,  the  carrier.  Just  as  important  to  me  (in  a  sense) 
is  all  the  furniture  of  my  world,  —  eye-pampering,  but 
satisfies  no  heart.  Streets,  streets,  streets,  markets, 
theatres,  churches,  Covent  Gardens,  shops  sparkling 
with  pretty  faces  of  industrious  milliners,  neat  seam- 
stresses, ladies  cheapening,  gentlemen  behind  counters 
lying,  authors  in  the  street  with  spectacles,  lamps  lit  at 
night,  pastry-cooks'  and  silver-smiths'  shops,  beautiful 
Quakers  of  Pentonville,  noise  of  coaches,  drowsy  cry 
of  mechanic  watchmen  at  night,  with  bucks  reeling 
home  drunk,  —  if  you  happen  to  wake  at  midnight,  cries 
of  '  Fire  ! '  and  '  Stop  thief! '  — inns  of  court  with  their 


CHARLES  LAMB.  309 

learned  air,  and  halls,  and  butteries,  just  like  Cambridge 
colleges,  —  old  book-stalls,  '  Jeremy  Taylors,'  '  Burtons 
on  Melancholy,'  and  '  Religio  Medicis,'  on  every  stall. 
These  are  thy  pleasures,  0  London-with-the-many-sins ! 

—  for   these   may  Keswick   and   her   giant  brood  go 
hang !  " 

Does  any  weak-limbed  country-liver  resent  this  hon- 
esty of  speech  ?  Surely  not,  if  he  be  earnest  in  his 
loves  and  faith ;  but,  the  rather,  by  such  token  of  un- 
bounded naturalness,  he  recognizes  under  the  waistcoat 
of  this  dear,  old,  charming  cockney  the  traces  of  close 
cousinship  to  the  Waltons,  and  binds  him,  and  all  the 
simplicity  of  his  talk,  to  his  heart,  for  aye.  There  is 
never  a  hill-side  under  whose  oaks  or  chestnuts  I  lounge 
upon  a  smoky  afternoon  of  August,  but  a  pocket  Elia  is 
as  coveted  and  as  cousinly  a  compariion  as  a  pocket 
Walton,  or  a  White  of  Selborne.  And  upon  wet  days  in 
my  library,  I  conjure  up  the  image  of  the  thin,  bent  old 
gentleman — Charles  Lamb  —  to  sit  over  against  me, 
and  I  watch  his  kindly,  beaming  eye,  as  he  recites  with 
poor  stuttering  voice,  —  between  the  whiffs  of  his  pipe, 

—  over  and  over,  those  always  new  stories  of  "  Christ's 
Hospital,"  and  the  cherished  "  Blakesmoor,"  and  Hack- 
ery End." 

(No,  you  need  not  put  back  the  book,  my  boy  ;  't  is 
always  in  place.) 


810  WET  DAYS. 

The  Ettrick  Shepherd. 

I  NEVER  admired  greatly  James  Hogg,  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd ;  yet  he  belongs  of  double  right  in  the 
coterie  of  my  wet-day  preachers.  Bred  a  shepherd,  he 
tried  farming,  and  he  wrote  pastorals.  His  farming  (if 
we  may  believe  contemporary  evidence)  was  by  no 
means  so  good  as  his  verse.  The  Ettrick  Shepherd  of 
the  "  Noctes  Ambrosianae "  is,  I  fancy,  as  much  becol- 
ored  by  the  wit  of  Professor  Wilson  as  any  daughter 
of  a  duchess  whom  Sir  Joshua  changed  into  a  nymph. 
I  think  of  Hogg  as  a  sturdy  sheep-tender,  growing  re- 
bellious among  the  Cheviot  flocks,  crazed  by  a  reading 
of  the  Border  minstrelsy,  drunken  on  books,  (as  his 
fellows  were  with  "mountain- dew,")  and  wreaking  his 
vitality  on  Gaelic  rhymes,  —  which,  it  is  true,  haye  a 
certain  blush  and  aroma  of  the  heather-hills,  but  which 
never  reached  the  excellence  that  he  fondly  imagined 
belonged  to  them.  I  fancy,  that,  when  he  sat  at  the 
laird's  table,  (Sir  Walter's,)  and  called  the  laird's  lady 
by  her  baptismal  name,  and  —  not  abashed  in  any  pres- 
ence —  uttered  his  Gaelic  gibes  for  the  wonderment  of 
London  guests,  —  that  he  thought  far  more  of  himself 
than  the  world  has  ever  been  inclined  to  think  of  him. 
It  may  not  be  commonly  known  that  the  Ettrick 
Shepherd  was  an  agricultural  author,  and  wrote  "  Hogg 
on  Sheep,"  for  which,  as  he  tells  us,  he  received  the  sum 


LOUDON.  311 

of  eighty-six  pounds.  It  is  an  octavo  book,  and  relates 
to  the  care,  management,  and  diseases  of  the  black-faced 
mountain -breed,  of  which  alone  he  was  cognizant.  It 
had  never  a  great  reputation  ;  and  I  think  the  sheep- 
farmers  of  the  Cheviots  were  disposed  to  look  with  dis- 
trust upon  the  teachings  of  a  shepherd  who  supped  with 
"  lords  "  at  Abbotsford,  and  whose  best  venture  in  verse 
was  in  "  The  Queen's  Wake."  A  British  agricultural 
author,  speaking  of  him  in  a  pitiful  way,  says,  — "  He 
passed  years  of  busy  authorship,  and  encountered  the 
usual  difficulties  of  that  penurious  mode  of  life"  * 
This  is  good ;  it  is  as  good  as  anything  of  Hogg's. 

• 
London. 

T  APPROACH  the  name  of  Mr.  London,  the  author 
-*-  of  the  Encyclopaedias  of  Gardening  and  Agriculture, 
with  far  more  of  respect.  If  nothing  else  in  him  laid 
claim  to  regard,  his  industry,  his  earnestness,  his  in- 
defatigable labor  in  aid  of  all  that  belonged  to  the  prog- 
ress of  British  gardening  or  farming,  would  demand  it 
I  take  a  pride,  too,  in  saying,  that,  notwithstanding  his 
literary  labors,  he  was  successful  as  a  farmer,  during 
the  short  period  of  his  farm-holding. 

Mr.  Loudon  was  a  Scotchman  by  birth,  was  educated 

*  Agricultural  Biography,   etc.   London,  1854.       Printed  for  the 
Author. 


812  WET  DAYS. 

in  Edinburgh,  and  was  for  a  time  under  the  tutelage 
of  Mr.  Dickson,  the  famous  nurseryman  of  Leith-Walk. 
Early  in  the  present  century  he  made  his  first  appear- 
ance 'in  London,  —  contributed  to  the  journals  certain 
papers  on  the  laying-out  of  the  public  squares  of  the 
metropolis,  and  shortly  after  was  employed  by  the  Earl 
of  Mansfield  in  the  arrangement  of  the  palace-gar- 
dens at  Scone.  In  1806  he  published  a  work  upon  the 
management  of  country-residences,  and  at  about  the 
same  period  entered  upon  the  business  of  farming, 
which  he  followed  with  great  success  until  1813.  In 
this  and  the  succeeding  year  he  travelled  on  the  Conti- 
nent very  widely,  making  the  gardens  of  most  repute 
the  special  objects  of  his  stiidy ;  and  in  1822  he  gave 
to  the  world  his  "  Encyclopaedia  of  Gardening  " ;  that 
on  Agriculture  followed  shortly  after,  and  his  book  of 
Rural  Architecture  in*  1833.  But  these  labors,  enor- 
mous as  they  were,  had  interludes  of  other  periodical 
work,  and  were  crowned  at  last  by  his  magnum  opus, 
the  "  Arboretum." 

"  For  months,"  says  Mrs.  London,  speaking  of  the 
preparation  of  the  Encyclopaedias, "  he  and  I  used  to 
sit  up  the  greater  part  of  every  night,  never  having 
more  than  four  hours'  sleep,  and  drinking  strong  coffee 
to  keep  ourselves  awake."  And  this  persistency  of 
labor  was  the  more  extraordinary  from  the  fact  that  he 
was  a  man  of  naturally  feeble  constitution,  and  as  early 


LOUDON.  313 

as  the  date  of  his  first  considerable  work  was  broken  by 
disease.  In  the  year  1806  a  night's  exposure  upon  a 
coach-box  in  travelling  brought  upon  him  a  rheumatic 
fever  which  resulted  in  a  permanent  anchylosis  of  the 
left  knee.  Subsequently  his  right  arm  became  affected, 
and  he  submitted  to  shampooing.  In  this  process  it 
was  broken  so  near  to  the  shoulder  that  it  could  not  be 
set  in  the  usual  manner ;  somewhat  later  it  was  again 
broken,  and  finally  amputated  in  1826.  Meantime  his 
left  hand  became  so  affected  (rheumatically)  that  he 
could  use  only  the  third  and  little  finger.  But  though 
after  this  time  always  obliged  to  employ  an  amanuensis 
and  draughtsman,  he  wrought  on  bravely  and  constantly 
until  the  year  1843,  when  he  was  attacked  with  infla- 
mation  of  the  lungs.  To  this,  however,  he  did  not 
yield  himself  a  willing  prey ;  but  with  his  right  arm 
gone,  his  left  side  paralyzed,  his  sight  miserably  defec- 
tive, and  his  lungs  one  mass  of  disease,  he  kept  by  his 
desk  and  his  work,  up  to  the  very  day  of  his  death. 

This  veteran  author  massed  together  an  amount  of 
information  upon  the  subjects  of  which  he  treated  that 
is  quite  unmatched  in  the  whole  annals  of  agricultural 
literature.  "Columella,  Heresbach,  Worlidge,  and  even 
the  writers  of  the  "  Geoponica,"  dwindle  into  insignifi- 
cance in  the  comparison.  He  is  not,  indeed,  always 
absolutely  accurate  on  historical  points;*  but  in  all 

*  I  ought,  perhaps,  to  make  definite  exception  in  the  case  of  a  writer 


314  WET  DAYS. 

essentials  his  books  are  so  complete  as  to  have  made 
them  standard  works  up  to  a  time  long  subsequent  to 
their  issue. 

No  notice  of  the  agricultural  literature  of  the  early 
part  of  this  century  would  be  at  all  complete  without 
mention  of  the  Magazines  and  Society  "  Transactions," 
in  which  alone  some  of  the  best  and  most  scientific 
cultivators  communicated  their  experience  or  sugges- 
tions to  the  public.  London  was  himself  the  editor  of 
the  "  Gardener's  Magazine  " ;  and  the  earlier  Transac- 
tions of  the  Horticultural  Society  are  enriched  by  the 
papers  of  such  men  as  Knight,  Van  Mons,  Sir  Joseph 
Banks,  Rev.  William  Herbert,  Messrs.  Dickson,  Ha- 
worth,  Wedgwood,  and  others.  The  works  of  indi- 
vidual authors  lost  ground  in  comparison  with  such  an 
array  of  reports  from  scientific  observers,  and  from  that 
time  forth  periodical  literature  has  become  the  standard 
teacher  in  what  relates  to  good  culture.  I  do  not 
know  what  extent  of  good  the  newly  instituted  Agri- 

so  universally  accredited.  In  his  Encyckqxedia  of  Gardening,  he  speaks 
of  the  Geoponica  as  the  work  of  "modern.  Greeks,"  written  after  the 
transfer  of  the  seat  of  empire  tp  Constantinople ;  whereas  the  bulk  of 
those  treatises  were  written  long  before  that  date.  He  speaks  of  Varro 
as  first  in  order  of  time  of  Roman  authors  on  agriculture ;  yet  Varro 
was  born  116  B.  c.,  and  Cato  died  as  early  as  149  B.  c.  Crescenzi  he 
names  as  an  author  of  the  fifteenth  century;  he  should  be  credited  to 
the  fourteenth.  He  also  commits  the  very  common  error  in  writers  on 
gardening,  of  confounding  the  Tusoan  villa  of  Pliny  with  that  at  Tus- 
culum.  These  two  places  of  the  Koman  Consul  were  entirely  distinct. 
In  his  Epist.  6  ( Apollinari)  Pliny  says,  "  Hales  causas  cur  ego  Tuscos 
ineos  Tmculanis,  Tyburtinit,  Pnenentinisque.  meis  praiponam." 


A  BEVY  OF  POETS.  315 

cultural  Colleges  of  this  country  may  effect ;  but  I  feel 
quite  safe  in  saying  that  our  agricultural  journals  will 
prove  always  the  most  effective  teachers  of  the  great 
mass  of  the  farming-population.  The  London  Horti- 
cultm-al  Society  at  an  early  day  established  the  Chiswick 
Gardens,  and  these,  managed  under  the  advice  of  the 
Society's  Directors,  have  not  only  afforded  an  accurate 
gauge  of  British  progress  in  horticulture,  but  they  have 
furnished  to  the  humblest  cultivator  who  has  strolled 
through  their  enclosures  practical  lessons  in  the  craft  of 
gardening.  It  is  to  be  hoped  that  the  American  Agri- 
cultural Colleges  will  adopt  some  similar  plan,  and 
illustrate  the  methods  they  teach  upon  lands  which 
shall  be  open  to  public  inspection,  and  upon  whose 
culture  and  its  successes  systematic  reports  shall  be 
annually  made. 

A  Bevy  of  Poets. 

"TTTRITING  thus,  during  these  in-door  hours,  of 
*  *  country-pursuits,  and  of  those  who  have  illus- 
trated them,  or  who  have  in  any  way  quickened  the 
edge  with  which  we  farmers  rasp  away  the  weeds  or 
carve  out  our  pastoral  entertainment,  I  come  upon  the 
names  of  a  great  bevy  of  poets,  belonging  to  the  earlier 
quarter  of  this  century,  that  I  find  it  hard  to  pass  by. 
Much  as  I  love  to  bring  to  mind,  over  and  over  again, 


316  WET  DAYS. 

"  Ivanhoe "  and  "  Waverley,"  I  love  quite  as  much  to 
summon  to  my  view  Walter  Scott,  the  woodsman  of 
Abbotsford,  with  hatchet  at  his  girdle,  and  the  hound 
Maida  in  attendance.  I  see  him  thinning  out  the  sap- 
lings that  he  has  planted  upon  the  Tweed  banks.  I 
can  fancy  how  the  master  would  have  lopped  away  the 
boughs  for  a  little  looplet  through  which  a  burst  of  the 
blue  Eildon  Hills  should  come.  His  favorite  seat, 
overshadowed  by  an  arbor-vitae,  (of  which  a  leaf  lies 
pressed  in  the  "  Scotch  Tourist "  yonder,)  was  so  near 
to  the  Tweed  banks  that  the  ripple  of  the  stream  over 
its  pebbly  bottom  must  have  made  a  delightful  lullaby 
for  the  toil-worn  old  man.  But  beyond  wood-craft,  I 
could  never  discover  that  Sir  Walter  had  any  strong 
agricultural  inclination  ;  indeed,  in  one  of  his  letters, 
dated  about  the  time  of  his  commercial  involvement, 
(1826,)  he  says,  —  after  enumerating  other  prospective 
retrenchments,  —  "  then  I  give  up  an  expensive  farm, 
which  I  always  hated,  and  turn  all  my  odds  and  ends 
into  cash."  *  Again,  (and  I  count  this  a  surer  indica- 
tion,) he  puts  in  the  mouth  of  Cromwell  ("  Woodstock  ") 
a  mixed  metaphor  of  which  no  apt  farmer  could  have 
been  guilty.  The  Puritan  general  is  speaking  of  the 
arch  -  loyalist  Dr.  Rochecliffe,  and  says,  "  I  know  his 
stiffneckedness  of  old,  though  I  have  made  him  plough 
in  my  furrow,  when  he  thought  he  was  turning  up  his 
*  Lockhart's  Life,  Vol.  IV.  ch.  i. 


A  BEVY  OF  POETS.  317 

own  swathe"  Nor  do  I  think  that  the  old  gentleman 
had  much  eye  for  the  picturesque ;  no  landscape-gar- 
dener of  any  reputation  would  have  decided  upon  such 
a  site  for  such  a  pile  as  that  of  Abbotsford  :  *  the  spot 
is  low ;  the  views  are  not  extended  or  varied  ;  the  very 
trees  are  all  of  Scott's  planting ;  but  the  master  loved 
the  murmur  of  the  Tweed,  —  loved  the  nearness  of 
Mel  rose,  and  in  every  old  bit  of  sculpture  that  he 
walled  into  his  home  he  found  pictures  of  far-away 
scenes  that  printed  in  vague  shape  of  tower  or  abbey 
all  his  limited  horizon. 

Christopher  North  carried  his  Scotch  love  of  moun- 
tains to  his  home  among  the  English  lakes.  I  think 
he  counted  Skiddaw  something  more  than  "  a  great 
creature."  In  all  respects  —  saving  the  pipes  and  the 
ale  —  he  was  the  very  opposite  of  Charles  Lamb.  And 
yet  do  we  love  him  more?  A  stalwart,  hearty  man, 
with  a  great  redundance  of  flesh  and  blood,  who  could 
"put  the  stone"  with  Finlayson,  or  climb  with  the 
hardiest  of  the  Ben-Nevis  guides,  or  cast  a  fly  with  the 
daintiest  of  the  Low-Country  fishers,  —  redundant  of 
imagination,  redundant  of  speech,  and  with  such  exu- 

*  This  is  the  more  remarkable  as  Scott  wrote  most  appreciati  vely 
<m  the  subject  of  landscape-gardening.  I  allude  particularly  to  that 
(•harming  essay  of  his  in  the  Quarterly  Review  for  March,  1828,  based 
upon  Sir  Henry  Steuart's  scheme  for  the  safe  removal  of  large  forest- 
trees,  —  a  scheme  which  unfortunately  promised  more  than  it  has  per- 
formed. 


318  WET  DAYS. 

berance  in  him  that  we  feel  surfeit  from  the  overflow, 
as  at  the  reading  of  Spenser's  "  Faery  Queene,"  and 
lay  him  down  with  a  wearisome  sense  of  mental  indi- 
gestion. 

Nor  yet  is  it  so  much  an  indigestion  as  a  feeling  of 
plethora,  due  less  to  the  frothiness  of  the  condiments 
than  to  a  certain  fulness  of  blood  and  brawn.  The 
broad-shouldered  Christopher,  in  his  shooting-jacket,  (a 
dingy  green  velveteen,  with  pocket-pouches  all  stuffed,) 
strides  away  along  the  skirts  of  Cruachan  or  Loch 
Lochy  with  such  a  tearing  pace,  and  greets  every  lassie 
with  such  a  clamorous  outbreak  of  song,  and  throws 
such  a  wonderful  stretch  of  line  upon  every  pool,  and 
amazes  us  with  such  stupendous  "  strikes  "  and  such  a 
whizzing  of  his  reel,  that  we  fairly  lose  our  breath. 

Not  so  of  the  "  White  Doe  of  Rylstone  " ;  nay,  we 
more  incline  to  doze  over  it  than  to  lose  our  breath. 
Wilson  differs  from  Wordsworth  as  Loch  Awe,  with 
its  shaggy  savagery  of  shore,  from  the  Sunday  quie- 
tude and  beauty  of  Rydal- Water.  The  Strid  of  Words- 
worth was  bounded  by  the  slaty  banks  of  the  "  Crystal 
Wharf,"  and  the  Strid  of  Wilson,  in  his  best  moments, 
was  as  large  as  the  valley  of  Glencoe.  Yet  Words- 
worth loved  intensely  all  the  more  beautiful  aspects  of 
the  country,  and  of  country-life.  No  angler  and  no 
gardener,  indeed,  —  too  severely  and  proudly  medita- 
tive for  any  such  sleight-of-hand.  The  only  great  weight 


A  BEVY  OF  POETS.  319 

which  he  ever  lifted,  I  suspect,  was  one  which  he 
carried  with  him  always,  —  the  immense  dignity  of  his 
poetic  priesthood.  His  home  and  its  surroundings  were 
fairly  typical  of  his  tastes :  a  cottage,  (so  called,)  of 
homely  material  indeed,  but  with  an  ambitious  elevation 
of  gables  and  of  chimney-stacks  ;  a  velvety  sheen  of 
turf,  as  dapper  as  that  of  a  stiburban  haberdasher ;  a 
mossy  urn  or  two,  patches  of  flowers,  but  rather  fragrant 
than  showy  ones ;  behind  him  the  loveliest  of  wooded 
hills,  all  toned  down  by  graceful  culture,  and  before 
him  the  silvery  mirrors  of  Windermere  and  Eydal- 
Water. 

We  have  to  credit  him  with  some  rare  and  tender  de- 
scription, and  fragments  of  great  poems  ;  but  I  cannot 
help  thinking  that  he  fancied  a  profounder  meaning  lay 
in  them  than  the  world  has  yet  detected. 

John  Clare  was  a  contemporary  of  Wordsworth's,  and 
was  most  essentially  a  poet  of  the  fields.  His  father 
was  a  pauper  and  a  cripple ;  not  even  young  Cobbett 
was  so  pressed  to  the  glebe  by  the  circumstances  of  his 
birth.  But  the  thrushes  taught  Clare  to  sing.  He 
wrote  verses  upon  the  lining  of  his  hat-band.  He 
hoarded  halfpence  to  buy  Thomson's  "Seasons,"  and 
walked  seven  miles  before  sunrise  to  make  the  pur- 
chase. The  hardest  field-toil  could  not  repress  the 
poetic  aspirations  of  such  a  boy.  By  dint  of  new 
hoardings  he  succeeded  in  printing  verses  of  his  own ; 


320  WET  DAYS. 

but  nobody  read  them.  He  wrote  other  verses,  which 
at  length  made  him  known.  The  world  flattered  the 
peasant -bard  of  Northamptonshire.  A  few  distin- 
guished patrons  subscribed  the  means  for  equipping  a 
farm  of  his  own.  The  heroine  of  his  love-tales  became 
its  mistress ;  a  shelf  or  two  of  books  made  him  rich ; 
but  in  an  evil  hour  he  entered  upon  some  farm-specu- 
lation which  broke  down  ;  a  new  poem  was  sharply 
criticised  or  neglected ;  the  novelty  of  his  peasant's 
song  was  over.  Disheartened  and  gloomy,  he  was  over- 
whelmed with  despondency,  and  became  the  inmate  of 
a  mad  -  house,  where  for  forty  years  he  has  staggered 
idiotically  toward  the  rest  which  did  not  come.  But 
even  as  I  write  I  see  in  the  British  papers  that  he  is 
free  at  last  Poor  Clare  is  dead. 

With  this  sad  story  in  mind,  we  may  read  with  a  zest 
which  perhaps  its  merit  alone  would  not  provoke  his 
little  sonnet  of  "The  Thrush's  Nest":  — 

"  Within  a  thick  and  spreading  hawthorn-bush, 
That  overhung  a  mole-hill  large  and  round, 
I  heard  from  morn  to  morn  a  merry  thrush 
Sing  hymns  of  rapture,  while  I  drank  the  sound 
With  joy;  and  oft,  an  unintruding  guest, 
I  watched  her  secret  toils  from  day  to  day,  — 
How  true  she  warped  the  moss  to  form  her  nest, 
And  modelled  it  within  with  wood  and  clay, 
And  by-and-by,  like  heath-bells  gilt  with  dew, 
There  lay  her  shining  eggs  as  bright  as  flowerg, 


A   BEVY  OF  POETS.  321 

Ink-spotted  over,  shells  of  green  and  blue ; 
And  there  I  witnessed,  in  the  summer  hours, 
A  brood  of  Nature's  minstrels  chirp  and  fly, 
Glad  as  the  sunshine  and  the  laughing  sky." 

There  are  pretty  snatches  of  a  Southern  May  in 
Hunt's  poem  of  "  Rimini,"  where 

"  sky,  earth,  and  sea 

Breathe  like  a  bright-eyed  face  that  laughs  out  openly. 
'T  is  Nature  full  of  spirits,  waked  and  springing: 
The  birds  to  the  delicious  tune  are  singing, 
Darting  with  freaks  and  snatches  up  and  down, 
Where  the  light  woods  go  seaward  from  the  town ; 
While  happy  faces  striking  through  the  green 
Of  leafy  roads  at  every  turn  are  seen ; 
And  the  far  ships,  lifting  their  sails  of  white 
Like  joyful  hands,  come  up  with  scattery  light, 
Come  gleaming  up  true  to  the  wished-for  day, 
And  chase  the  whistling  brine,  and  swirl  into  the  bay." 

This  does  not  sound  as  if  it  came  from  the  prince  of 
cockneys  ;  and  I  have  always  felt  a  certain  regard  for 
Leigh  Hunt,  too,  by  reason  of  the  tender  story  which 
he  gives  of  the  little  garden,  "  mio  picciol  orto"  that  he 
established  during  his  two  years  of  prisonhood.* 

But,  after  all,  there  was  no  robustness  in  his  mral 
spirit,  —  nothing  that  makes  the  cheek  tingle,  as  if  a 
smart  wind  had  smitten  it.  He  was  bom  to  handle 
roses  without  thorns ;  I  think  that  with  a  pretty  boudoir, 

*  Lord  Byron  and  his  Contemporaries,  Vol.  II.  p.  258. 
21 


322  WET  DAYS. 

on  whose  table  every  morning  a  pretty  maid  should 
arrange  a  pretty  nosegay,  and  with  a  pretty  canary  to 
sing  songs  in  a  gilded  cage,  and  pretty  gold-fish  to  dis- 
port in  a  crystal  vase,  and  basted  partridges  for  dinner, 
his  love  for  the  country  would  have  been  satisfied.  He 
loved  Nature  as  a  sentimental  boy  loves  a  fine  woman 
of  twice  his  years,  —  sighing  himself  away  in  pretty 
phrases  that  flatter,  but  do  not  touch  her ;  there  is  noth- 
ing to  remind,  even,  of  the  full,  abounding,  fiery,  all- 
conquering  love  with  which  a  full-grown  man  meets  and 
marries  a  yielding  maiden. 

In  poor  John  Keats,  however,  there  is  something  of 
this ;  and  under  its  heats  he  consumed  away.  For 
ripe,  joyous  outburst  of  all  rural  fancies, — for  keen 
apprehension  of  what  most  takes  hold  of  the  suscepti- 
bilities of  a  man  who  loves  the  country,  —  for  his  coin- 
age of  all  sweet  sounds  of  birds,  all  murmur  of  leaves, 
all  riot  and  blossoming  of  flowers,  into  fragrant  verse, 
—  he  was  without  a  peer  in  his  day.  It  is  not  that  he 
is  so  true  to  natural  phases  in  his  descriptive  epithets, 
not  that  he  sees  all,  not  that  he  has  heard  all ;  but  his 
heart  has  drunk  the  incense  of  it,  and  his  imagination 
refined  it,  and  his  fancy  set  it  aflow  in  those  jocund 
lines  which  bound  and  writhe  and  exult  with  a  passion- 
ate love  for  the  things  of  field  and  air. 


L'ENVOL  323 

E  Envoi. 

I  CLOSE  these  papers,  with  my  eye  resting  upon  the 
same  stretch  of  fields,  —  the  wooded  border  of  a 
river,  —  the  twinkling  roofs  and  spires  flanked  by  hills 
and  sea,  —  where  my  eye  rested  when  I  began  this  story 
of  the  old  masters  with  Hesiod  and  the  bean-patches 
of  Ithaca.  And  I  take  a  pleasure  in  feeling  that  the 
farm-practice  over  all  the  fields  below  me  rests  upon  the 
cumulated  authorship  of  so  long  a  line  of  teachers. 
Yon  open  furrow,  over  which  the  herbage  has  closed, 
carries  trace  of  the  ridging  in  the  "  Works  and  Days  " ; 
the  brown  field  of  half-broken  clods  is  the  fallow  (Neos) 
of  Xenophon ;  the  drills  belong  to  Worlidge ;  their 
culture  with  the  horse-hoe  is  at  the  order  of  Master 
Toll.  Young  and  Cobbett  are  full  of  their  suggestions  ; 
Lancelot  Brown  has  ordered  away  a  great  straggling 
hedge-row ;  and  Sir  Uvedale  Price  has  urged  me  to 
spare  a  hoary  maple  which  lords  it  over  a  half-acre  of 
flat  land.  Cato  gives  orders  for  the  asparagus,  and 
Switzer  for  the  hot-beds.  Crescenzi  directs  the  wall- 
ing, and  Smith  of  Deanston  the  ploughing.  Burns  em- 
balms all  my  field-mice,  and  Cowper  drapes  an  urn  for 
me  in  a  tangled  wilderness.  Knight  names  my  cher- 
ries, and  Walton,  the  kind  master,  goes  with  me  over 
the  hill  to  a  wee  brook  that  bounds  down  under  hem- 
locks and  soft  maples,  for  "  a  contemplative  man's  rec- 


324  WET  DAYS. 

reation."  Davy  long  ago  caught  all  the  fermentation 
of  my  manure-heap  in  his  retort,  and  Thomson  painted 
for  me  the  scene  which  is  under  my  window  to-day. 
Mowbray  cures  the  pip  in  my  poultry,  and  all  the  songs 
of  all  the  birds  are  caught  and  repeated  to  the  echo  in 
the  pages  of  the  poets  which  lie  here  under  my  hand  ; 
through  the  prism  of  their  verse,  Patrick  the  cattle-ten- 
der changes  to  a  lithe  milkmaid,  against  whose  ankles 
the  buttercups  nod  rejoicingly,  and  Rosamund  (which 
is  the  nurse)  wakes  all  Arden  (which  is  Edgewood) 
with  a  rich  burst  of  laughter. 


THB    END. 


